


get those angels drunk on rose water

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Hysterical Literature, Other, The Great Gatsby - Freeform, girl!Harry Styles - Freeform, girl!Zayn Malik - Freeform, gratuitous amounts of gatsby, literally my line breaks aren't staying SORRY DUDES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gatsby loses himself when he gives himself away. Harry’s determined not to make the same mistake.</p><p>(Or, Harry keeps getting hit in the head by a flyer for a Hysterical Literature session, so maybe this is fate. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	get those angels drunk on rose water

**Author's Note:**

> Phewww, this took all my guts to post. And write. And wouldn't have been done for either if it wasn't for Christine (ll0yd on AO3, go look her up if you like Supernatural!), so massive massive thanks to her!!
> 
> I'm a big fan of the Hysterical Literature sessions, and could see a fem!Harry doing it the first time I watched it. The rest of the story came from that. 
> 
> Standard disclaimer that I neither think that I have any right to know what is going on in the band, nor do I think this is real life. (Obviously.) I'm just here for the lol's and the vast opportunities that the fandom presents. Please respect the fourth wall.
> 
> And do let me know what you think! xx

The flyers are all over campus, and Harry can't keep from seeing them. Not that she's tried all  _that_  hard, when she thinks about it, because the thin paper is currently clutched in her hands, the sweat from her palms lending it a feeling of fragility that it hadn't given off earlier when it was fluttering above her head and tangling in her hair.

"Whatcha got there, Styles?" The arm slung around her shoulders would have given away the speaker even if the voice hadn't, but Harry rolls her eyes anyway. "Looks interesting... Hysterical Literature Sessions? Not exactly your cup o'tea, love, is it?"

She leans into his arm a little more. "It flew right at my head," the girl grumbles. "Just -  _right_  at my head."

"You walked into a flyer."

Rolling her eyes again probably isn't healthy, and she refrains. Barely. "It's not  _my_  fault that the storm made everything all gross and loose and stuff."

" _You_  walked into a  _flyer_."

She shoves her elbow into his stomach. "Shut  _up_ , Nick."

The laughter is far from unexpected, and she can't keep her lips from twitching skyward even as she tries to pout - Nick's got a contagious laugh. It's not  _her_  fault. "Harry, honestly, only you would do that. Why are you still holding onto it?"

She appreciates the fact that Nick's at least  _trying_  to be serious and ask her what she's thinking – doesn't really appreciate the laughter, or the fact that it's about three months too late for their relationship, but appreciates it all the same.

"I dunno," she shrugs, careful not to dislodge his arm. It's cold out, and she's warm. It makes sense to cuddle – for… body temperature. It's science.

For a moment, she imagines saying that to him – telling him that she's only curled up into his side as they walk down the pavement because it's scientifically proven that when you cuddle together you get warmer. He'd laugh, Harry knows – probably remind her that she's going to be a  _lawyer, not a doctor, Hazza, or have you changed your mind again?_

Harry shakes the thought off. It's probably a better idea  _not_  to spend much time thinking about the way she  _could_  go about things and instead focus on  _how_  she is, especially considering he's stopped laughing and is looking at her like he knows what he's thinking.

"Haz," Nick says gently.

Gentle is  _not_  a word she usually uses to describe Nick, and it makes her teeth hurt – though that's probably because she's clenching her jaw, actually.

"What."

"Why'd you keep the paper?" Even more gentle this time.

She shrugs again. "It's interesting, isn't it?" The girl responds slowly, thinking through her words. Four months ago Nick would have teased her to speed up her speaking, but this time he remains quiet. The breakup hadn't been easy on either one of them, or so their friends said. "The idea that – that you'd be  _videotaped_  having – you know. An orgasm."

Nick reaches up, tugging absently at his lip. It's a bad habit he can't break. Harry had told him once that he could if he tried, he just didn't try. He'd laughed.

"If you can't say it without blushing, maybe you shouldn't go to the session."

It hurts more, probably, because she knows he doesn't intend it to be cruel. For all his high-manners and refusal to let anyone close, Nick isn't a cruel person.

"I'm not blushing." It's a weak defense; he wouldn't have said it if she wasn't, and Harry knows herself – pale skin doesn't hide red very well. It's the middle of winter; she's lost the faint tan she gets in the summer.

"Yeah, Haz, you are. You're blushing just at the  _thought_  of doing this. It's ridiculous, anyway – a rip-off of that guy who did it and put it on YouTube."

"Yeah," Harry says. "I know."

They're quiet a moment, the girl – almost a woman, she'd think if it didn't sound like that Britney Spears song her first boyfriend had loved so much – turning Nick's words over in her head.

He  _is_  right, and she knows it: she's not embarrassed by sex of other people or even of herself, but the idea of being touched to orgasm by a complete stranger in front of  _other_  complete strangers? Well.

She likes intimacy. Likes to know that the hand sliding up her thigh is one that has cupped her cheek when she was kissed, and that the hot breath puffing over her bellybutton has huffed out in laughter at a joke she's told.

Nick knows that. It doesn't surprise her that he's hesitant – where Pixie or Gemma might have told Harry to go for it (Gemma with the condition that she never hear anything about it in the future, probably); Nick knows that Harry likes intimacy.

This project gives intimacy to the viewers. That's the point. It says so on the flyer.

"Maybe it's good to step outside my comfort zone," she says finally as they draw to a stop in front of her building. "You know. Try new things. Don't get too familiar."

If she hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have seen the skin around Nick's eyes tighten. "Harry…"

"Or," she continues, made suddenly reckless by the knowledge that, yeah, she won't do this – but at least it won't be because Nick says she shouldn't. "Maybe it's just – you know. I don't want to be tied down, and this says no commitments."

His lips tighten, too. Harry doesn't smile – doesn't feel like it, either, and it's a strange feeling. She removes her hand from his waist, starts up the steps to her building.

They've been friends – or more – since her first year at uni, almost three years ago. It feels like an eternity of time has passed since the fresher she had been had looked up at Nick, hair in a quiff and taller than she felt she could  _see_ , and told him she'd buy him a cup of coffee if he helped her find her classrooms.

Still. He's never not said goodbye before - not that she's ever given him the  _chance_  to not.

" _Harry_."

She shakes her head. "Whatever," she says. "I'll see you later." The anger that had been there seconds ago is gone again, and he's not her ex, Nick, he's just … Nick. Which doesn't make this easier, but whatever. She's fine. "Coffee on Wednesday, still?"

His eyes are still watching her carefully when he answers, but the skin around them has loosened. "Let's make it dinner, instead. I'm covering for Greg at the show in the afternoon."

She nods. "Alright. See you then."

"Harry – "He calls after her just as she starts to turn, and she pauses, looks back at him. He's on the pavement and she's maybe a foot above him, but it's the first time in almost three years she's felt taller than him.

She raises her eyebrows – never got the hang of just one, despite her best efforts. "Yeah?"

His lips quirk. "See you Wednesday."

It's not  _quite_  a good-bye, but it's not just leaving, either, so she counts herself lucky and lets herself into her flat. It's warmer inside than outside, and Harry can feel her ears warming up. The tingling feeling there and in the tips of her fingers, where no matter the thickness of her gloves the cold refuses to leave, is familiar this time of year. London isn't known for its ability to keep its inhabitants  _warm_  - intellectually stimulated, maybe, but warm?

Not so much.

"Taylor," Harry calls out, "Did we get that heating fixed yet?"

There's no answer, and she can't help herself from deflating slightly in relief. Long fingers unwind her scarf from her neck, hang her jacket up on the rack. She leaves her shoes on; if her roommate's not here, then she doesn't need to worry about it.

And it's not that she doesn't  _like_  Taylor - from a distance. When they aren't spending copious amounts of time stuck together in the same set of rooms and trying desperately to make it through two very different, very difficult programs. She likes Taylor as a roommate in theory is what the trouble is, she supposes, which. It's not very conducive to actually living together.

Next year, Harry thinks as she makes her way into the kitchen, next year she'll have her own place even if it  _does_  have to be a closet in someone's bathroom stall, or however her mum had phrased it when she'd called.

Apparently, Harry had too many guy friends, and while she was relying on her mum to help her pay the rent every month - she played by Anne's rules. No roommates of the opposite sex.

It isn't that hard to handle, if she doesn't think too hard about the fact that she'd said yes to Taylor before waiting to see if anyone else would ask her – but Pixie lives with Nick, and that would have been an  _awful_  idea; she'd known that even before their relationship had ended. And Taylor  _isn't_  that bad of a roommate, not really.

She is small-minded and too pretty for her own good, but she is also clean and likes to cook as much as Harry and only lost her temper when Harry didn't wake her up in the mornings, so.

Well, it could have been worse.

Harry frequently tells herself that.  _Everything_  could have been worse. She is lucky that she was where she was – at a good uni, in a good flat, with a decent enough flatmate.

She sets the flyer down on the island in the center of the kitchen and refuses to think about it.

She hasn't done the shopping in too long, she knows – and looking inside the fridge, it's  _definitely_  been too long. Maybe spaghetti… But there are no noodles.

Or salad?

A quick check in the produce drawer puts that to rest – unless she wants to eat a salad made solely out of beets (does  _anyone_  like beets? How do they always end up in her fridge?) and water chestnuts.

There's a half-empty thing of chicken broth, so that eliminates making chicken soup, and Harry can't quite keep a laugh back.

She'd promised Taylor they wouldn't starve, but she's not sure how that's supposed to work if the fridge is empty with no signs of that changing in the near future. Her paycheque doesn't come until the next week, and she doesn't even know the last time that Taylor's was on time, her boss is even worse than Harry's manager -

"Looks like takeaway, then," she says to no one, and shuts the fridge door to grab a wine glass.

Boxed wine, she convinces herself, is classy. Princess Diana probably drank it - the new Princess Katharine  _definitely_  did. She was a uni student, after all. And if the royalty (or almost-royalty – the now-royalty?) can drink boxed wine, then Harry  _definitely_  can.

"Already breaking out the alcohol, Haz?" Taylor's voice floats over to her, startling the dark-haired woman. Her fingers fumble on the stem of the glass, swearing under her breath –

"Jesus, Taylor," she snaps, "A little warning next time?"

A laugh. "Yeah, sorry. Thought you knew I was here."

Harry rolls her eyes, back still to her roommate. "I called out when I came in, but you didn't answer?"

"Yeah," Taylor says again. "I was in the shower. What's for dinner?"

Harry shrugs and – finally setting the glass of wine upright – goes about getting the wine out of the cabinet. "Do you think we were supposed to refrigerate this…?" She asks before adding absently: "I was thinking that Chinese place across town that delivers. You like their dumplings, don't you?"

Taylor's moved closer some time in the last few moments, and her shoulder knocks affectionately against Harry's own as she reaches her a glass for herself. "You'd have to be dead not to like their dumplings," she says.

The brunette snorts a laugh, nodding. "Or maybe dying," she adds. "I'll give them a call in a half hour or so, see if we can't get it delivered to  _our_  flat this time."

"What, you didn't like having to knock on Big Jim next door's place and get our Chinese from him?"

Harry shudders. "I thought he was going to eat it in front of me just to spite me."

Taylor grins. "Yeah, he probably would have," the other girl muses. "God, I thought he was going to eat you too – walking over there in those shorts like you were. He thought Christmas came early."

"It was more like hell," Harry grumbles, and sets her glass down on the counter so that she can jump up to sit on it. Typically she tries to stay off the counters – if she makes Nick do it, she can't be a hypocrite. But Nick's not around and he broke her heart anyway, so she can do what she wants.

The sip of wine this time is a bit more like a gulp.

Taylor wanders towards the living room. "I was thinking we could marathon something tonight," she says idly. "We haven't watched the latest Made in Chelsea yet, have we?"

"I'd sooner die," Harry says. " _Big Brother_?"

A scoff.

"Keeping up with – "

"If you finish that with  _Kardashian_ ," Taylor turns, eyes narrowing, "I'm disowning you."

"Aw, you don't mean that," Harry grins, "They're great, aren't they? I'm a fan of Kendall, personally – "

"Ugh," Taylor groans, "Shut up. What's this?"

It's maybe a last-ditch effort to make Harry stop talking about a show that Taylor can't stand (though she never got  _why_  – Scott is Harry's favorite, personally, if only for the fact that she frequently shuts Gemma up by calling her a peasant so that she'll go off on a rant about socioeconomic statuses that Harry can join in on), or maybe Taylor really is interested in what the flyer on the table says, but whatever it is, she's picked up the Hysterical Literature advert and is reading it.

Harry's cheeks are burning already.

"It's nothing," she mutters, and knows that she's lost already. Denial is as good as admitting weakness, and Taylor is  _very_  good at finding weaknesses. And then exploiting them. Sometimes Harry isn't sure how they get along at all, really.

A delicately manicured brow arches, and Harry shrugs again, shoulders rolling under her flannel shirt. "It flew into me today," she says, "I brought it back. It's interesting, right?"

"You walked into a flyer?" Taylor repeats, and Harry's reminded again of Nick. She opens her mouth to refute the statement as Taylor starts reading the page, but closes it again – there's a reason that Nick and Taylor get along so well, and it's not always their mutual affection for Harry.

Silence reigns in the kitchen for a moment, leaning into the yellowing cabinets that had, she's sure, once been a cheerful white even as Harry leans forward. She thinks she already knows what Taylor is going to say, but –

She does like surprises, and sometimes the blonde manages to do that. She'd brought home a frog, once, claiming that it wouldn't move off the side of the road and she couldn't stand the thought of it being squished beneath some unaware car or bicyclist's wheels.

And maybe hysterical literature isn't the same thing as bringing home a frog and then promptly giving it to Big Jim next door, but – Harry has hopes, maybe.

"… What did you say this is, again?"

Harry winces. "I didn't," she says, voice slower than even her normal. "It's – you know. An advert."

Her roommate's eyes are unamused. "I can see that, Harry," Taylor says. "An advert for  _what_?"

She brushes her hair behind her ear before answering, wonders if she can make something up. Probably not – the definition is on the sheet of paper, for crying out loud. Didn't whoever thought it up have any sense of shame?

"You read it," she says instead, "You can put two and two together to read between the – you know – the lines. They kept it pretty classy, didn't they?"

A scoff. "Ridiculous," Taylor says, and throws the paper back onto the counter. "You aren't honestly thinking about doing it?"

It's that, more than anything, which has Harry bristling.

"What if I was going to?" She asks thoughtfully. "It's not like it's got my full name on it – my privacy is protected."

"Harry," Taylor's voice is as though she's talking to a five year old. "Your face is still going to be shown."

She deliberately doesn't show anything on her face – or tries not to. She's frequently told she's not very good at hiding her feelings, which.

Well, it's not necessarily  _un_ true, but it's not always true, either. It's a balancing act.

"And…?"

Taylor's lips purse. "Do you really want your face associated with something like – like  _this_?"

The disgust in the final word is enough to have Harry smile. Harmlessly. She doesn't mean harm to Taylor. (If she repeats it, it'll come true.) It's a harmless smile.

"Yeah, you know," she says, "I think I might. It's a good cause, yeah. The - they're doing it for a master's thesis, something about reworking other's art for your own cause. I'm all about helping people graduate."

It's not a question, but Taylor takes it as one anyway – apparently.

"It's a ridiculous cause, more like," Taylor scoffs, rolls her eyes, long nails tapping restlessly against the faux-marble of their counters. "And anyway, you're not the kind of person who does stuff like this, Harry, you're too – proper."

Harry closes her lips, smiles, and moves to the living room.  _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_  will have to wait.

She opens her laptop that night in the darkness of her room and researches Hysterical Literature.

It's… interesting.

* * *

 

It feels like fate, the way that another flyer tangles itself in her hair the next day. Or maybe not fate so much as sheer unluckiness, but –

She'll take it as fate.

Peeling the wet paper away from her hair and holding it in front of her, green eyes sweep over the writing once more.

 **Hysterical Literature Sessions at University!**  The title proclaims in bold, sweeping letters. She can almost imagine someone grabbing her hand and pulling her into the room to sit in front of a table; and is that how this would be done?

She's definitely not ready for that. Nick and Taylor's words ring loudly in her ears.

 _Come by at 5pm,_  it says,  _We'll be hosting an information session for an hour._

She twists her wrist, purses her lips. It's almost half-past – she could make it to the room, maybe, if she ran. Probably no one would even notice that she walked in – probably it would be crowded with people who wanted to show that they were strong and independent people – probably she would be fine.

Her pace doesn't change, but her direction does; it's nearly a ninety-degree turn, and she almost stops when she gets to the door of the building ten minutes later, but doesn't even then.

 _You're not the kind of person who does stuff like this, Harry_.

It rings in the lift, the refrain, and almost mutes out the dull music that sings above her head. She pays enough to the university that she would expect them to pick better lift music. Apparently not.

When her floor dings, it takes a long second for her to gather the breath in order to move forward. (It's not courage – it's breath. There's a difference, or so she tells herself.) And when she finally does, it's because the doors start to shut and she panics, bangs her elbow on the door, and runs into someone waiting for the lift.

 _Fabulous_.

"Sorry – " She manages, "I didn't – I'm clumsy, I didn't see you."

He's very good looking, the man she ran into. Brown eyes that look sweet, if distant, with smile lines forming around them; a full mouth that judging by the crow's feet is used to smiling.

And it's not smiling now, but it's not  _not_  smiling, so – well, that's progress.

He reaches out a hand to steady her, palm pressing briefly against her shoulder before he drops it to his side again. "No worries," he smiles, reassuring. "Probably my fault, I didn't check to see if someone was already in the lift."

She giggles a little and then blushes. It's not a very strong sound. Not the sound someone would make if they were going to orgasm on video. "Right," she agrees faintly. "Not a lot of people here, I guess."

"No," He shakes his head, a faint frown pulling at his lips. "Not really. Anyway – "

And she's reminded that he didn't mean to stop and talk to her when those same brown eyes flicker past her into the lift. "Right," she says again, hasty. "Sorry, didn't mean to get in your way."

Another smile. "No, you didn't," he says, and moves past her into the lift. She wonders if the music will bother him as much as it did her. Probably not. "Have a good one, then."

Harry nods. "Yeah, thanks," she says, and hefts her bag higher on her shoulder. "You too."

She doesn't hear a response before the doors close, but doesn't think there would have been one anyway. He'd probably been in a rush, Harry rationalizes, and she continues on her way as if there had been no one there anyway.

The door that she's looking for has a large sign on it that says, "In Use," and she heads towards it, raising a hand to knock on it. The tentative tap has it open easily, the door itself unlocked, and she moves into the room gingerly. It's an auditorium more than a classroom, with a long aisle stretching away from her and sloping gently towards a stage.

Two people are vaguely outlined against the dark backdrop of the stage curtain. One of them is sitting on the stage, dark hair tucked behind her ears and tilted forward towards the boy at her side; the other is leaning against the stage, hands gesturing wildly. They look busy, and neither of them seems to realize that Harry is there until she lets the door close behind her, the light from the hallway disappearing abruptly.

"Oh," the boy's voice rings down towards her, "Hello! Are you lost?"

Her lips curl upwards. "No, I don't – " She pauses. "Well. I don't think so. This is for the, ah, the hysterical literature sessions? I found a flyer." Harry holds up the paper as though for proof.

He laughs, and the girl nudges him. His laugh is soft, she thinks, even though the pitch of it should grate against her skin, probably. It feels like a kitten's tongue – like he could make it cruel, if he wanted.

Probably too much to infer from a laugh.

"Well," he pushes himself off the stage, "A flyer's all you need for access, right, Zayn?"

The girl – Zayn – laughs. "Right. You're a bit late, love – "

"Yeah, or you would have been if anyone had  _come_." He extends a hand towards Harry, who hadn't realized she'd stopped. "Come on, we don't bite."

Zayn grins. Harry can see her teeth from here. "Not unless you like that sort of thing, in which case we do. Hard."

"Well," Harry drawls. "I am into that sort of thing, so."

There's a beat, and then laughter from both of them rings out into the theatre, and Harry doesn't bother hesitating before she joins them.

"Sorry," she grins even while the heat rises high on her cheeks. "People don't usually laugh at my jokes. I don't have a follow-up to that."

The boy smirks; he's even sharper up close, with piercing blue eyes and scruff around his lips. He looks like he could bite you and leave a mark and make you like it, too. "No worries," he says. "We'll take care of it for you."

Zayn elbows him. "Louis," she mutters. "Be nice."

Louis rolls his eyes. "I  _am_  being nice. If I was being mean – oh, we don't know your name yet."

It should be a question, but his voice doesn't rise at the end, and Harry doesn't take it as one.

"Harry," she says. "It's not short for anything – I'm just Harry."

"Well,  _Just Harry_ ," Louis' eyes narrow, and she braces herself for the usual joke, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

She blinks, feels almost letdown and at the same time thrilled that he was above the Hagrid remark. God knows she's heard  _yer a wizard, Harry_  enough times that she could probably own royalties on it if J.K. Rowling would let her.

Zayn's lips curl upwards, and Harry glances over at her – and  _Christ_ , but she's too damn pretty for her own good, isn't she? The cheekbones that Zayn lays claim to look as though they could cut glass, or at least any unsuspecting boy who wants her in his bed. Harry, who's acutely aware of the fact that she hasn't plucked her eyebrows in weeks and didn't bother putting on her nice foundation that day, shoves her hands in her pockets.

"He actually means it," Zayn says dryly. "Which is more than we'll say for most people. But seeing as how we only had about three people come by, we really are glad to see you."

"We're assuming you want to volunteer," Louis cuts in. "You do, don't you?"

Harry nods. "Yeah," she says, "That's why I'm here."

Zayn hums. "Well, that's a plus, then," she says. "One of the other girls didn't even know what this was."

Her lips stretch into a smile without her permission. "Well, I did my research."

"Good," Louis rubs his hands together. "Watch any of the YouTube videos? There's a tonne."

She nods. "Yeah, I liked Stoya's the best."

A flicker of approval shows in their eyes. "Personally," Zayn says, "I agree with you. Nothing beats the original, right?"

Harry shakes her head, pushes the curls that flop into her eyes out of the way. "Nah, I don't think so."

It should feel awkward, she thinks in the beats of silence that follow her, even as Louis taps his fingers against Zayn's hand and Zayn watches Harry. She's come here to volunteer to be masturbated to orgasm in front of these two, among others, among the Internet population and those of the art world at her university – let alone the art world beyond the university. Harry's not fool enough to have completely ignored what Taylor had said about her face being shown.

But it doesn't, even so, and her shoulders are as relaxed as Zayn and Louis' when she asks, "So, what's the process for all of this, then?"

Zayn shrugs, "We want to get to know you. You'll pick a book; let us know what it is and when you're free, and then come in and video for us. Probably thirty minutes of filming at max – "

"If you've a metal vag," Louis mutters.

" – And then an hour or so of reflection in an essay or another video, whatever you're more comfortable," Zayn continues over Louis, ignoring him with what seems like the ease of a steady friendship. "It's not a complicated process, really."

"Who'll be filming?" Harry asks, a line drawing between her brows.

It's Louis who answers her. "Liam," he says, "He's a filmmaker, interning in London this year. We've known him for years, he's great – a great guy  _and_  great at what he does."

"People like that are hard to come by in his industry," Zayn adds, flicking her hair behind her shoulder. She looks like she should be in an advert for Gucci or some shit, Jesus. "We try to monopolize him when we can, but we'll be working around his schedule as well as yours, really."

Harry's lips quirk. "He's popular, then?"

"Yeah," Zayn nods. "He's really good."

"Nice of him to help with this," she says, careful to keep it noncommittal. It's none of her business why someone who's apparently as good as Liam at his job would want to help with a graduate student's final art project, but – well, she's a bit curious. Sue her.

Zayn shrugs. "Yeah, it is."

It's not an answer.

But then, Harry thinks, she didn't ask much of a question.

Louis picked up on it, though; at least, if she has to guess by the narrowed look he gives her. "Why did you say you were doing this?"

She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. "I didn't," she says slowly. "Say, that is."

Zayn arches a well-manicured – of course – brow at her. "Well?" She prompts.

She fidgets. "My roommate," she says after a minute when no one else has said anything. The silence is unnerving. "She, uh - judges a lot, you know?"

Louis' gaze doesn't leave her the whole time, and he nods - encouraging. She probably shouldn't think his eyes are so damn  _pretty_ , not when Zayn's hand is on his shoulder like that.

They make a pretty couple.

"This won't stop her from judging, love," he says. "Prob'ly do it more, actually."

Harry shrugs. "I know." She grins, tosses a curl from her face absently. "But at least I'll get a good wank out of it, right?"

A laugh seems to startle its way from Louis, loud and sharp with a tone to it that should be abrasive but seems more welcoming than anything else. Zayn tucks a smile behind her lips, and Harry wonders again how she's even allowed to exist. Is there something in the water, wherever these two are from?

"Always better to control the conversation," Zayn nods. "I get it."

Harry leans back against a seat, still in front of them as though this is an interview; and in a way, she supposes it sort of is. Admittedly, it's not a very …. conventional one.

"Is that why you're doing it?" she asks, bravery from their acceptance allowing the words to come out cleanly.

They pause, both pairs of eyes narrowing on her – she brings her lip beneath her teeth again, gnawing at it absently. Maybe it was a step too far to ask, but.

 _But_  they're going to be watching her  _come_  on video, for Christ's sake. She thinks maybe she's allowed to ask their motivation for doing it in the first place.

"For me," Zayn says slowly – and then an alarm goes off on her phone, and she glances down at it, faint frustration showing on her face. "That was the end of the time we can be in here, Lou. We can talk about this over food and  _not_  in a borrowed theatre classroom. Are you hungry, by any chance?"

Harry thinks she's talking to Louis, but those dark eyes are on her, and she shrugs. "Yeah, I could eat, I guess."

Louis rolls his eyes. "What Zayn's not telling you," he says, and even Harry can hear the fondness in the words, "is that we  _technically_  aren't supposed to be in here, so really, we should get out as soon as possible."

Harry's eyes widen. "Er – what?"

If she didn't think Zayn was incapable of blushing, she'd say that the faint darkening on the top of her cheekbones was just that. "We, ah, didn't have time to go through proper channels and rent out this room, so we just – commandeered it."

"Like … pirates?" she asks faintly, stepping back while Louis gathers his bag and Zayn picks up the clipboard at her side.

At her comment, though, both of them look over at her, identical expressions of humor dancing in their gaze.

"God," Louis says, "We're going to have fun with you. Like pizza, by any chance? Niall swears by it, and we're going to go meet him."

Harry grins slowly. "Does anyone  _not_  like pizza?"

Satisfaction is clear in Louis' eyes, and he slings an arm around her, steering her towards the exit while Zayn follows behind them, texting on her phone. " _So_  much fun," he repeats. "I'm already excited."

* * *

 

Niall, it turns out, does more than just swear by pizza. He also  _makes_  it, apparently, and already has a booth set-aside in the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Zayn and Louis take her to. It's only a ten minute walk, she's told, and when they get there it's right down the street from her own flat, but it feels like even less than that with the way that they chatter around her, jokes and good-natured ribbing flying over her head and prods to her elbows encouraging her to join.

It's the last part that stops it from feeling as though she's a third wheel and instead makes her speak up too, her voice far more languid than Louis' bright, airy tones or Zayn's dry humour. But she doesn't feel as though she's left out – feels instead like she's part of the group, like they  _want_  her there. And maybe it's just that she's doing them a favor, participating in this group project that Zayn's doing, but it doesn't feel like that.

Even when they walk into the pizzeria – it's dinky, and she isn't surprised that she's never noticed it before now, no matter how crowded it appears to be – Zayn heads over to chat with a blonde boy behind the hostess booth and Louis grips her by her elbow, steering her towards a booth.

"We always sit here," he explains on the way, deftly dodging patrons as he goes. He does everything deftly, Harry's decided – he's not as tall as some, but he's wiry and muscled and moves with a grace that Harry, who trips over air, is jealous of. "Niall gets off shift about – " He turns to check the clock on the back wall " – Well, in ten minutes, at six or so. He'll come join us when he's free."

Harry glances behind her, trusting Louis for the moment to lead her properly, and catches sight of Niall watching Zayn walk away. His eyes are soft, and she looks away; it feels like she's intruding too much for someone whom she's never properly met.

The stories that Zayn and Louis had told her along the way, though, had given her a fairly good idea of what the boy was like, and Harry's looking forward to the dinner more than she would have expected to. She  _likes_  people, likes to be with them, and hasn't been with new ones lately – Nick and Taylor consume so much of her time that, sometimes, it's tiring to go out of her way and make time for others.

"Does he go to uni here, too?" she asks, settling herself in the booth that Louis indicates.

He slides in next to her, bumping up against her until she shifts over; he's warm, like sunlight, and defies all the odds considering it's bloody freezing outside. "He used to," Louis says. "Graduated when we did, but Zayn continued for her Masters and I've got a teaching job around here at a preschool."

"That's nice," she comments. "That you all stayed so close. You were friends before, right?"

"Yeah, good memory," He grins at her, quicksilver and sharp and playful in a way she's beginning to expect from him. "With Liam, too, that's the – "

"The videographer, I remember," she nods.

His smile turns impressed. "There's that memory again."

Her cheeks heat. "Yeah," she shrugs, twists a finger in a lock of hair. "I try, you know. People like to know that you remember them and it's – it makes them happy, yeah? It's not a very big thing to do, remembering someone's name or face, but not a lot of people do, so I try to. It's not that difficult for me."

She's surprised that he doesn't interrupt her – Harry knows as well as anyone that she's got a habit of rambling on when no one stops her to get her back on track, but his eyes stay focused on her through the long sentences, as though she's interesting enough that he wants to hear what she's got to say.

"You're one of a kind," Louis says quietly. It feels more genuine than anything else he's said, and she tucks the warmth that blossoms in her chest away for later examination; there's no time now, really, with Zayn sliding into the seat opposite the pair even as he finishes: "I'm glad you're doing this with us."

"Got you all won over, doesn't she, Lou?" Zayn quips.

Louis' smile turns wicked. "Doesn't take much for me, you know that. How's Niall, then?"

Zayn grabs a napkin from the center of the table, her long fingers tugging at its edges. "He's fine," she says shortly. "He'll be over in a few."

"Ask any special favours?" Louis leans towards Zayn, away from Harry, and she feels the loss as though the sun has gone behind a cloud.

"No," Zayn says, "I didn't, Louis."

There's a thread in her voice that Harry doesn't recognize, but it shuts Louis up, and Harry's vaguely impressed.

"Right, then," he says instead, "Let's take a look at the menu, shall we?"

"Like you don't know everything there is on there, Lou?" A deep voice rings over the booth, and the blonde boy – Niall – sits down next to Zayn. "Hi," he nods to Harry. "I'm Niall."

He extends a hand, and Harry takes it, shaking briefly.

"Harry," she says. "Pleasure."

Niall winks, blue eyes twinkling. She hadn't thought that anyone's eyes actually  _twinkled_. "Pleasure's mine, Harry. You'll want to give the sausage pizza a go, Zayn, it's the specialty today."

Zayn rolls her eyes. "I'm a  _vegetarian_ , Ni," she says, and Niall laughs.

"Can't blame me for trying, can ya?" He teases, smile turned to both Zayn and the others at the same time. Harry likes him already – his face is open and his smile is broad and his eyes seem nice. She would be surprised if he is mean on purpose to anyone, though the set of his shoulders and muscles down his arms make her wonder what it is like when he's angry.

"And you, Harry," he asks. "Are you a vegetarian too?"

"Oh, no," she startles, "No, I'm not. I was vegan for a while, though."

"Oh?" Louis wonders. "Why'd you stop? Most people keep that up, don't they?"

"My roommate," Harry shrugs. "She's not, and it was too expensive to buy extra food. I'll probably pick it up again when I get my own apartment next year, I dunno."

Zayn nods, thick hair falling over her shoulder as she does. "Makes sense to me," she says, dark eyes scanning the menu.

"Luckily for you," Niall interrupts, "We do have vegan pizza here – and it's no more expensive, so, you're welcome to it."

Harry grins. "Thanks," she says, "I'll do that, then. With pineapple on top."

"Louis?" Niall turns to him.

The man in question makes a face. " _Ugh_ ," he says, "You honestly put pineapple on your pizza, Harry?" She grins.

"It was the only topping my sister wouldn't eat – being the youngest is hard, you know. You have to fight for your food."

He rolls his eyes. "I'll take your word for it," he mutters, "I'm the oldest of four sisters."

" _Four_?" Her eyes are wide but she can't bring herself to pretend that she isn't shocked.

Harry can't imagine having more than one – she loves Gemma more than anything, really, but she'd been enough of a trouble growing up. Multiply that by four and her mum probably would have had more gray hairs than she did – not that Harry ever told her she did, of course. She wasn't  _crazy_.

Zayn laughs. "Louis' a proper mum to us," she says, "He doesn't show it though, does it?"

"Fuck off," Louis says pleasantly, and looks at Niall. "I'll just do the pepperoni slice, Ni. Want me to go tell Perrie?"

Niall shakes his head. "Nah, I've got it," he says, "Be back in a mo'."

Harry's lips curl upwards as he grabs the menus and heads off to the front of the room, where a small girl with bleach blonde hair and big eyes is leaning against the booth. "He's nice," she says. "You were right."

Louis grins, content. "I'm always right," he says, "You'll figure that out sooner or later."

Zayn rolls her eyes, steepling her fingers in front of her. "Not even close," she says laughingly, "Don't believe a word he says, Harry. For a preschool teacher he's an awful liar."

Harry raises her brows. "Is that so. I'll have to keep that in mind."

"I resent that," Louis makes a face. "I'm a very truthful person, I'll have you know."

The look Zayn gives Harry around Louis is enough to have the girl giggling, one hand flying to her lips as though to keep the noise in.

"Niall's our promoter," Zayn switches tracks, interrupting Louis from the rambling mess his defense of his truthfulness has become. Harry's eyes are watering. "He did the posters and stuff."

"They ran into me twice," Harry remembers. "He's doing a good job."

"Thanks, love," the blonde in question says, slinging himself back into the seat. Zayn arches a brow at him – Harry watches enviously. "Hope they didn't hurt you too much."

"Nah," Harry says at the same time that Zayn asks, "Back for good this time, Ni?"

He grins comfortably. "Yeah, shift just ended. Pez's gonna finish up for us."

"The blonde?" Harry asks.

Niall nods. "Yeah, and Jade'll be in a bit later to help keep some of the pressure off'a her. Perrie's got an exam coming up so she's got to go study for it."

"What's she studying?"

It's Louis who answers her this time. "Medicine," he says, "She wants to be a pediatrician."

"She'll be a good one," Zayn says. "She's right fond of kids, wants a whole host of 'em."

"Eh," Niall shrugs, "Who doesn't?"

Zayn glances away, and Louis pipes up: "Personally, I'd like to get married first."

Niall's eyes are on Zayn, but he says anyway, "Even as young as you are?"

Louis shrugs, "Yeah, definitely. Obviously I'd want to fall in love before that, but you know. Marriage is a good thing."

"Me too," she says quietly, "Love and then marriage, and then kids, eventually."

Niall snorts. "Well, now we've all figured out our future plans," he says. "Is Liam coming by?"

"Reckon so," Zayn says. Her eyes are slightly more guarded than they had been before Liam's name had been mentioned again. "Bit later though, he says.

He's got to check in on a project first."

"What sort of project?" Harry asks curiously.

Zayn smiles, and it's sort of blinding. This many pretty people should not be allowed together, Harry decides. "You'll have to ask him. He's a busy man, our

Liam."

"Does he have time for this?"

"He's pretty well-known around London," Zayn says proudly, brown eyes - that's not quite the right shade, Harry thinks, but she can't figure it out without getting closer and that's slightly creepy. "But it's not - " A huff, as though she can't figure out what she wants to say. Or, maybe, how she wants to say it. "Liam wants to do more than just shoot adverts, and that's what his internship is right now, you know?"

Harry's lips quirk. "Yeah," she says. "He wants more. I get that."

She thinks maybe all of them understand that, on some level or another – that's why they're involved. And maybe they aren't the only ones – she knows there's other girls that have been recruited; there has to have been – but they're sitting around the table and Niall is working at a pizzeria and doing this and Zayn is getting her degree and doing this and Louis is teaching and doing this, and.

They all want more than just this.

That's what the project is about, maybe.

Zayn dips her head elegantly. "Exactly," she murmurs, "It's not always about paying the bills, you know? Sometimes it's about paying your soul, too."

"If you let her," Louis interrupts, "Zayn will go on and on about your soul and how important it is."

He's warm against Harry's side, and the girl's not sure when they scooted closer to each other but it feels right; he feels like bottled sunshine kept in holding for a rainy day, like something bigger than a hole-in-the-wall pizza shop that makes vegan crust.

Her lips curl upwards in another slow smile. It feels like it's been ages since she's smiled this much – and her cheeks hurt from it. It's a constant realization. "I like it," she says simply, "Better than chattering on about the weather or politics."

"It sucks and they all suck," Louis says promptly, "But Zayn didn't tell you why she was doing this yet, has she?"

His gaze is pointed when it swings to the girl in question, and Harry follows his lead, dropping her hands to her lap and lacing her fingers together.

"No," Harry says quietly. "But I do want to know, if you'll share."

Zayn smiles – it's just as blinding as Louis', if not quite as  _warm_. It's more … benevolent than thrilled, Harry decides, but no less thrilling for it.

"We're asking you to do a lot for us," she observes, "It's the least I can do, right?"

Harry grins, but doesn't say anything. It's exactly what she was thinking, after all.

Niall swings his arm around Zayn's shoulders, squeezing his hand over the thin bones there while Harry watches. The table is quiet, no matter the chattering of the other patrons in the room.

"I'm Muslim," Zayn starts after a moment, as though she's finally gathered her thoughts into an easy way to phrase it so that others may understand. Louis and Niall already know, Harry can tell; there's none of the expectancy in their gaze that she can feel in her own, but they're warm, small suns waiting for their moon to rise. "Which, you know, isn't that uncommon here, but – "

She hesitates a moment, and Harry nods. She does know – she might have grown up in small, secluded Cheshire, but that doesn't mean she's clueless to the world around her. She's spent the last three years in London at university – she's  _trying_.

"Anyway," Zayn continues, "When people look at me – it's similar to you, Harry, I imagine. When they look at me they see a pretty girl and not much else. And then they find out I'm Muslim, and the lust is joined by… hesitation. At best."

She aims a smile at Harry. "So if they're going to be talking about me – and they do, it's not – it's not conceited of me to say it, I don't think – "

Louis mutters something under his breath, low enough that Harry, who's seated right next to him, can't hear it. It doesn't sound happy, and Harry, after a second's thought, moves one hand from her lap to rest on his leg, squeezes gently. She very carefully doesn't think about the firmness of his thighs – not the time, probably. Probably it will never  _be_ the time.

Zayn ignores him, regardless; maybe she already knows what he said. "But I thought, I have this chance to emulate any artist's work – so I might as well make it something I want them to talk about."

She cocks her head to the side. "Does that make sense, maybe?"

Harry smiles. "Yeah," she says quietly, "Yeah, I think I get it."

And she really does think that she does – because Zayn is almost  _too_  pretty, and smart, too. It's a dangerous combination, lethal in the wrong dose, and she doesn't doubt that many men – maybe women, Harry doesn't discriminate – have found that out along the way. Controlling the conversation, making it something that's about one's body as much as it isn't – she's done her research.

She thinks she really does understand.

"Well, personally," Louis clears his throat, and looks almost embarrassed when their gazes turn to him even though he'd invited it in the first place. It's Niall and Zayn's turn to look understanding; Harry's looked hungry for information the whole time. "I've got four sisters – I told you that."

Harry hums encouragingly. She still can't wrap her mind around it, if she's honest.

"Anyway, four sisters, and – the oldest, you know, she's fifteen, sixteen." He shrugs, his thigh twitching under Harry's hand; she hadn't realized she'd left it there, but doesn't want to move it now. It feels startlingly intimate, but to move it would be to bring attention to that intimacy, and she – wants it. "And she's ashamed of herself, in a lot of ways."

His face hardens, and this is Louis the older brother she's looking at – she hadn't realized he'd been putting on a front, but maybe he has. Or maybe this is just another facet. "I don't want that for her. It's hard enough to grow up, but to grow up ashamed of who you are and what – or who – you love?"

A shake of his head, and Harry's leaning towards him without realizing it, drawn by the intensity of his words even though his volume hasn't changed.

"I don't want that for her," he continues. "I guess I'm hoping she'll see this and realize that … she's just fine the way she is. Better than fine. She's beautiful however she wants to be. All of 'em are."

Zayn inputs quietly, "We can't make a difference in everyone's life, but – just by showing that it's okay for a woman to  _come_  on screen, you know? That  _matters_."

"They're worth it," Louis adds, his face slowly relaxing. "This isn't a thesis or anything, but it'll be on the web. People will see them."

Harry's aware that Zayn and Niall are watching her, but very carefully doesn't allow her face to show anything besides interest. Her own misgivings about doing this are almost forgotten – she'll remember them later, she's sure, but for now, swept up in the passion of Zayn and Louis, she isn't so sure that they matter that much.

"What about you, Niall?" She asks.

He laughs, the sound raucous and bright – it seems to break the spell that had hovered over the group of four talking of things so much bigger than themselves. "Personally," he says, hand tightening behind Zayn into a fist before relaxing again, "I'm jus' doing it 'cause Zayn asked me to. She's got mad puppy dog eyes, you know."

Louis leans toward Harry and says in a loud whisper: "He'll do anything Zayn asks."

"It's true," Niall says comfortably even as Zayn rolls her eyes, "'m telling you, mate, it's the eyes."

Harry's own cut towards Zayn, who's tapping the table idly. She looks like she's trying too hard to appear not to be paying attention, but Harry doesn't miss the way she's angled away from the two boys, mouth tight around the edges.

"Puppy-dog eyes never got me anywhere," she offers, "My mum could always see through them and my teachers thought everything I said was a lie anyway."

Louis snorts. "It's cause you're so innocent looking, prob'ly," he says, "They're inclined to think you're lying  _all_  the time."

"Heeeeeeey," Harry crosses her arms in front of her chest, glad that the air around them has lightened. "That's not true."

He arches a brow at her –  _again_ , Jesus - and leans towards her. Across the table, Zayn is pointing out something in the restaurant to Niall, but Harry isn't listening, consumed by the sudden realization that Louis' eyes don't have any color except blue in them. How is that even  _possible_?

"I bet it is," he counters quietly enough that she has to strain to hear him. "I bet all you have to do is flash those dimples at someone, and they'll do whatever you want."

She's not sure how to take it except as a joke, and responds accordingly: "Well," she winks, "Not  _anything_  I want."

He blinks, but doesn't say anything; her smile is the faintest bit triumphant.

"Liam!" Niall's crow over the top of the booth startles Harry and Louis both; Zayn's eyes, when Harry meets them, are laughing.

Both the boys in the booth get out to shake the newcomer's hand, clasping and then pulling him into a hug.

"Kind of like a mating ritual, innit?" Zayn says to Harry, even the dryness of her words unable to conceal the fondness beneath it.

"Sort of," Harry grins. "Boys will be boys, or something."

The newcomer – Liam, she's assuming, and it's probably a safe assumption so whatever – tousles Zayn's hair, and Harry laughs at the sound that Zayn makes; a cat who has been dumped into the river unexpectedly is probably less upset than Zayn, who wouldn't have looked out of place if she'd been spitting.

Louis' head turns to Harry, though, a grin splitting his face. "You've got a great laugh," he says, but Liam is talking over him. (Not that it matters, because Harry heard him anyway – it's something that's hard not to hear, and her smile is syrupy and just for Louis.)

"Hey," he sounds surprised. "You're the girl outside the lift earlier."

Her gaze lifts to meet Liam's, and the brown eyes there are familiar. Harry's lips split into a wider grin, less soft and more bright – she could be a sun, too, maybe; or a moon, reflecting back for everyone. It's easy to think that when the suns around her are so bright.

"Yeah," she remembers, "I ran into you. Sorry about that."

Liam's hand, when he waves it in the air nonchalantly, is massive. "I told you, it's not a big deal. I really was in a rush, wasn't looking where I was going." He slides into the booth between Niall and Zayn, and –

 _Oh_ , Harry thinks, watching the three of them as Louis settles himself back next to her.

Louis leans next to her, breath hot against her ear: "They haven't figured it out yet," he says, and she shivers – the goosebumps that spring up on her skin are purely from the heat of his words and not from his proximity, she tells herself and tries to believe it. "Don't tell them. You'll ruin my fun."

"Hey," Niall interjects, "No secrets at the booth. S' _sacred_."

Zayn rolls her eyes. "You're full o'shit, Ni," she snickers. "Just saying that 'cause you're a nosy bastard, aren't you?"

"Food's here," Liam interrupts, and Harry grins. "What did you suckers order me?"

Niall laughs. "I wanted to do anchovies and onions," he says blithely, "But Perrie said you'd had a hard day, so we did sausage and peppers. Good?"

Liam nudges him with his shoulder, and next to her, Louis does the same to Harry. "Sounds great," Liam says.

Harry echoes him, "It all sounds great," she says. "But I'm starving, so – "

Louis laughs at her side. "Food!" He cheers. "Put them in the centre, Pezza, there's a lass."

The dinner passes in a blinding whirlwind of laughter and stolen pizza slices, and Harry's stomach hurts from both of them. By the end, she's got a full plate of pizza that wasn't hers to begin with and the droopy eyes that go with a few pints and good company, and she's leaning into Louis contentedly.

"Where to next, then?" Louis asks, carefully reaching around her to grab his water and drain it.

"Mmmm," Harry speaks up first, "I have work in the morning. So it's home for me."

Zayn nods languidly. "Same," she says, "And Perrie's giving us the  _eye_. It's almost closing anyway, innit?"

Privately, Harry thinks, this Perrie is eyeing them all with a look that reads something like, "I am pre-med and I could kill you and make it look like an accident."

...Not that Harry's paranoid.

"Alright," Liam says, nodding to Niall. "Let's get you home then, Zayn – Niall, you crashing at ours tonight?"

The blonde man shrugs. "Might as well, yeah?"

Harry hides a laugh in her shoulder, catching bright blue eyes as she goes and having even more trouble doing so – because over the course of the dinner the two have gotten closer and she almost worries that it's weird to feel this comfortable with someone she just met.

She mostly ignores that voice.

"Alright, then," she says. "Let's get going, yeah?"

Not that she wants to, really, but – she gets the feeling that if she let them, the others would stay there all night, and she really  _does_  have work in the morning.

It's Monday today, but then it'll be Tuesday and then Wednesday, and coffee with Nick, and –

Well, she'll cross those bridges when she comes to them.

The others nod in varied states of disarray, sliding loose bodies out of the booths and putting their coats on, leaving notes on the table for Perrie. The poor thing, Harry thinks; she put up with them the whole night, and that's no small feat.

When they're outside, Louis and Harry split from the rest – the other three heading towards Zayn's flat, Zayn says, and nods to Harry and Louis with a smile that Harry doesn't understand but Louis does if the roll of his eyes is anything to go by.

She has the others' numbers in her mobile and a decision to make about a book to read, and all she can really think about is the fact that the spot on her elbow where Louis had gripped is tingling.

"You don't have to walk me home," she says as they head off, hands tucked into her pockets.

He shrugs. "I don't mind."

"No," Harry laughs, warm from good food and better company. "You really don't have to."

Louis rolls his eyes. "I don't  _mind_ , Harry," he repeats, "I want to. Get to know you and all that."

She pulls to a stop. "No…. You really don't have to," she says again, giggles. "This is my flat. Up the stairs and all that."

Louis blinks at her for a moment, tongue flicking out to wet his lips – and then he laughs, the kind of laugh where he tilts his head back and the sound flits up to the moon; the kind of laugh where Harry's helpless not to join in, and the two of them are laughing on the street at almost midnight in front of her flat until she can't breathe and tears are in her eyes.

"Well," he says helplessly, "There goes me trying to be a gentleman. At least my mum can't kill me for not trying, yeah?"

She grins at him, chest aching with fondness – she's only just met him, Harry reminds herself, but it's not just Louis. It's all of them. It's Niall with his blonde hair and raucous laugh and jokes; it's Liam with the gentle crinkles by his eye and the way each retelling of the time that Harry had run into him gets more and more unbelievable; it's Zayn, who's pretty and sweet and has a wicked tongue that has joined Harry's morbid jokes to give them an edge she'd been lacking.

And it  _is_  Louis, too, with the way that he'd protested not getting a meet-cute the way Liam and Harry had – and then had made her stand up and run into him just so that he could pretend to catch her in his arms as though he were a knight in shining armour.

It's Zayn, who'd said fondly that he'd missed his calling as a drama teacher, and Niall, who had quipped that there was time yet.

It is that they are so  _real_ , and she had to keep reminding herself that they aren't real for her, too.

She had her own friends, after all, and they were good and true and real – real for  _her_ ; people who knew  _her_ , not just the Harry she'd thought she could have been around the other four at the pizzeria.

It's that thought that has her stepping back.

"I'll see you later, then?" She tries for light-hearted and isn't sure how close she comes.

"'Course," Louis agrees easily, "Yeah, I'll text you. See you later, Harry. Have fun at work, yeah? And lessons, of course." A wicked grin curves his lips and she has to physically prevent herself from kissing him.  _Christ_ , but he's fit. "Don't skip your lessons, love."

She turns on the stairs, green eyes sparkling just a little with humour. "I'd never," she vows mock-solemnly, "I'm a paragon of saintliness."

"Ooooh, look who swallowed a dictionary," Louis coos, hopping away from her door and standing with one foot on the pavement and the other on the street. "Get on with you, Webster, get your beauty sleep. Not that – " His eyes drop over her noticeably " – You need it."

And that's – alright. Okay.

A garbled goodbye is given and then she's walking up the steps of her building, the knowing smirk that Louis had worn ingrained behind her eyes.

When she pushes into her flat and leans against the wall, her head is still spinning.

* * *

 

Tuesday passes in a whirl of lectures and work. The bakery that had hired her three years ago when she'd wandered in, gangly limbs and big eyes desperate for a place to work and make her own is still as welcoming as it had been then, and if it's expanded since into a shop that sells not only baked goods but coffee and savories, too, then Harry won't take credit but will give a smile. Her boss thinks something's up, maybe, if the lingering glances when she thinks Harry isn't looking are anything to go by, but –

Well, nothing's going on that Harry would want to tell the sixty-year-old woman, so she just smiles wider and adds another garnish to the pastries in the front display. Extra sprinkles never go amiss among the lunch crowd, and she's gotten used to the compliments on her work. It's nice to know that if law doesn't work out for her, at least she can make pretty pastries.

And then there's the rugby game that she goes to that night, watching Liam play and Niall and Zayn watch him, and it's.

It's  _nice_ , is the thing.

It's nice to sit with them, even if Louis has drunk half her tea by the time she sits down and Zayn ruffles her hair every time Liam scores a goal. Or whatever you call it. It's frequent.

More than nice, the experience - and the drinks at the pub afterwards with Liam's team and the rest of them, the people that Harry's begun to think of as potential friends - is dizzying, and she stumbles back to bed Tuesday night with her hair a frizzy mess and head a whirlwind of questions and alcohol.

 _Why_  does Louis look at her like that? His eyes are dark when she talks to someone else and light when she talks to him, but he turns away and brushes a hand down Zayn's back whenever she leans towards him, so -

The world isn't perfect and hers is far from it, but Jesus, he's pretty and sweet and confusing, and Harry's always had a weakness for that.

So it's not necessarily a bad thing that Wednesday is more sedate than Tuesday had been – the middle of the week rarely sees the same influx of customers as Tuesday does, when so many are desperate to keep the weekday blues away. By Wednesday, Harry has learned, most people tend to just accept that the week is going to suck and start looking forward to Friday.

Three years later and she's still surprised by the way that so many go in the same cycles every week.

But Wednesday also means coffee with Nick, and by the time she's running into the coffee shop they always meet at and ordering her usual, she's running behind.

"You're late," Nick's voice is warm and amused, if faintly mocking. It's his preset, Harry knows, and she doesn't take offense to it.

"As always," she agrees. "Bought you a biscuit, though."

She slides it across to him, a faint grin curling at the edges of her smile. It's a tradition, at this point – she's always late, and he expects it; she always buys him a biscuit to help make up for it, and he's come to expect that, too.

"Mhmmm," he hums, long fingers breaking it up into pieces. "Thanks, Haz. How was work?"

She shrugs. "As boring as ever," she says, "Only not really, actually, there was this one patient who came in today who's new – and you know, we don't actually get a lot of newcomers to the shop? – anyway, she was new, and she wanted me to decorate her wedding cake." Harry's eyes are sparkling. "Apparently she saw my work at a bachelorette party a few weeks ago, and – "

Nick raises a hand. "Sounds great, love," he says, not unkindly. "You'll do a great job, I'm sure."

She beams. "I'm really excited about it," she confesses as though it's some sort of secret to be ashamed of rather than the best news she's gotten at work since her boss had asked her to pick up more shifts so she could be promoted in the next months.

"I can tell," he nods, takes a sip of his coffee. His teeth flash in a quicksilver smile: "I'm proud of you, love."

He is, too, Harry knows. For all his faults – and Nick has many – he's never been the sort to begrudge her anything she's done, and he's always supported her in this. But he's distracted today, isn't listening the way he might have any other day, and she pushes back her excitement to lean towards him, hands clasped in front of her on the table.

"What's up?" She asks.

Nick shrugs, then launches into a story that she tries her best to follow –  _really_  – but there's more names than she can keep up with, especially when she's only met half of them, and those when she was drunk and irrefutably Nick's Girl.

"Sorry," she says when he seems to be winding down, "It'll pass over in a few weeks, though, yeah?"

It's not that she didn't listen to him, she thinks, it's just that it didn't stick with her – at least, if the way that his eyes are staring at her, affronted.

"Did you hear a word I said?"

She shrugs. "I was listening," she tells him, "But Nick – you know it's true. This too shall pass," and maybe it's a quote but it's something that she thinks he needs to hear anyway. "You stress so much about the little things sometimes, you know?"

A line is drawn between his brows, as deep as the Grand Canyon and equally impersonal. "That's rich, coming from you," Nick scoffs, turning his cup in his hands absently.

A pause hovers between them, the silence uncomfortable in a way that is as strange to Harry as it is heartbreakingly familiar – three months ago, she thinks (and not for the first time), they would never have had this problem.

Then again, three months ago they were having entirely different problems and Harry wasn't sure they'd make it this far, so.

She'll take what she can get.

"I'm sorry," she sighs finally, fingers tapping against her own cup. "You know I didn't mean to make you feel like I wasn't listening. I'm just – " She shakes her head as though to clear her mind, unsure if she was making her point clearly or even at all " – A bit all over the place right now."

His face softens – she hadn't realized it was so hard until then. "Is it this Hysterical Literature thing, Harry, because I just – "

"No," she interrupts harshly before softening her tone. "No," she says again. "It's not that. I just – I don't know." Harry shrugs. "Everything's a bit busy right now is all, I reckon."

Nick continues on as though she hadn't spoken at all. "Taylor said you were with them until almost midnight the last couple o'nights."

She doesn't confirm is, but doesn't deny it either. It's not like it's necessary to even speak – he always could read her mind from her eyes. Most people can; she's not the best at keeping her feelings hidden, and never really bothered to try.

"Right," Nick says. "Well, I just – I worry about you, you know?"

She shakes her head. "Why?" Harry asks, and it's genuine curiosity that laces her words. "I mean – I can handle myself, Nick, you know that."

His eyes are warm. "I know you can, Haz," he says. "You just don't have to, you know? I'm here for you." He reaches across the table, big hand laying over hers and stopping her fingers from tapping against the faux-wood; she hadn't even noticed that she was still doing it, but nervous habits are just that for a reason.

Harry forcibly pulls her lips into a smile. "Thanks, Nick," she says. "I really do appreciate that."

Nick leans forward across the coffee-shop table, his hand resting on her wrist like handcuffs; she'd used to think the heat of his skin was comforting. Now it feels like a brand.

"You don't think they're really your friends, Haz," he says quietly, "Do you? Because - well. You're just a volunteer, isn't that what you said?" She tucks her lips behind her teeth, throat suddenly gone dry.

"I - yeah," she says. "I mean - yeah. I'm a volunteer."

Nick shrugs a shoulder. "I just don't want you to get hurt, love," he says. "You know that, right? I'm just looking out for you."

Harry smiles. "Yeah," she says. "I know. Thanks, Nick."

* * *

 

It's dizzying, how easy it is to fall into step with the five of them. Dizzying and startling and so, so welcome.

The week passes in what feels like a blur - as though, if this were a movie, it would be the montage of pictures that slide past with happy, jaunty music playing in the background.

Thursday would be the day that Zayn showed up at her flat and did her hair before dragging her to an artist's gallery opening, telling her what the symbols meant and why this particular artist was full of shit. Zayn had smelled like wine and paint when she'd hugged Harry good-bye at the end of the night, and her breath had been hot when she'd whispered into her ear: "We really do like you. Please stay."

And then there had been that Saturday, when she'd been watching  _Captain America_  on her couch in her pajamas and a knock at her door had shown Niall and Liam and Louis, clad in black and begging her to go with them to a paintballing arena.

"I promise not to hit you too hard," Liam had promised her solemnly while Niall had held up his fingers behind his head to make horns.

She'd learned how apt that was when a pellet had slammed into her back halfway through the game, and she whirled only to find Liam, brown eyes alight with mischief, laughing.

"So much for not too hard, hey?" She asked, a laugh bubbling at the back of her own throat.

He'd only laughed harder before disappearing into the arena, but he'd bought her a coffee at the shop later that evening in penance.

"I'm competitive," he'd told her with earnest eyes –

"That's one word for it," Louis muttered, nursing the bruise on his forearm with a wince.

"Ah, you're a sore loser, Lou," Niall interjected, swinging an arm around the man. Harry and the others pretended they didn't see him conceal his own wince as he did so. "Er – Liam, mate, next time we're giving you a drink or two.  _Ahead_  of time."

Liam had rolled his eyes. "It's not my fault you're  _all_  awful at sport," he'd said primly, and their table had dissolved into laughter.

Monday, when Louis had texted her asking that she bring him lunch and keep him company "among the rest of these crazy kindergartners. I swear I'm quitting and gonna be an actor."

Wednesday, and Zayn and Louis had begged her to be their fifth in a football tournament.

They'd lost, of course, and Harry had barely managed to stay upright, but –

It had been fun all the same, to feel as though she were a part of a team that actually valued her for her humor (if not her sport ability).

And through it all had been Louis, texting her after the gallery; protecting her from Liam and Niall; laughing with her across the table as she muttered angrily about grass being an uneven surface and therefore more difficult to manage.

But the montage wouldn't have covered the other days in the two and a half weeks.

It wouldn't touch on the day when she'd studied for hours for a test that she was sure she'd failed, only to have Louis text her a quick: " :) you'll do great, H."

The montage wouldn't have shown the box of candies on her front doorstep the next morning addressed to "Curly."

It wouldn't have showed the time in the bar when Louis had stared at her eyes until she'd thought maybe she'd forgotten mascara on one of them.

"Your eyes are so  _green_ , Harry, Jesus," Louis says apropos of nothing in the middle of the pub.

Harry blinks. "Er – " She says, the pints and heavy food making her sluggish. "Thanks?"

He sighs, rolls his eyes. "It's a  _compliment_ , Jesus, Haz – "

She flinches and he stops, gaze sharpening on her face. "Sorry," she says in a tight voice, "Someone stepped on my foot." Harry shifts her weight to make it more believable – or to  _try_  and make it more believable. "What were you saying?"

Louis shakes his head, downs his drink – his eyes are still sharp and scream that he doesn't believe her, but he's willing to accept the lie, apparently, because he reaches out a hand and grabs hers. His palm is dry and warm and she clings to it like a lifesaver as he tugs her towards the bar.

"Come along, then," he says with a wicked smirk lingering about his lips. "Let's get you another drink to soothe that ache."

And the smiles –  _so_  many smiles, Christ, her cheeks hurt – when she showed up somewhere – that would have been skimmed over.

Dizzying as it may be, she's glad she isn't in a movie.

Those are the parts she holds even closer to her heart, uses them as shields against the little voice that says: "They aren't really your friends, Harry, you know that."

It's the day before she's supposed to go into a room with Liam and Niall and Zayn and Louis -  _God_  - and she still hasn't picked her book.

Not for lack of  _trying_ , though; she takes some reassurance in that. And she's sat in front of her bookshelf now, watching the familiar novels' backs as though they will bite, so. She's still trying. That's something.

She unlocks her phone before she realizes what she's doing and sends a text.

_how are you supposed to pick a book to be masturbated to though_

Another scan of her bookshelf. Maybe one of the few erotica, romantic novels?  _50 Shades of Gray_  would have a certain… irony to it, maybe.

The ring of her phone startles her out of her daze -  _Emma_  or  _The Picture of_   _Dorian Gray_?  _Gatsby_? - and she reaches for it, sliding it open before she can check who's calling.

Not that she's fooling anyone - Harry knows well enough that if Louis had called her at three in the morning, she'd still answer. If any of them had, really. But maybe especially Louis.

"You're not chickening out on me, are you, Curly?" He asks. She can almost picture the lazy grin on his face - similar to the one he'd worn after she'd realized that he'd stolen her drink at the pub the first weekend for the third time and she'd given up. Like he's won something that she hadn't realized she was playing for.

"Your accent is even stronger over the phone," she replies, and then hits disconnect.

Not that she doesn't want to talk to him. She just doesn't really want to talk to him about the book she's supposed to be choosing and hasn't yet. Nick has talked at her enough, anyway.

He calls her back a second later, and she lets it go to voicemail.

And again.

And again.

Finally, after she's gone to put the kettle on and come back to find that he hasn't given up yet, she screws up her face and answers the phone.

"... Hi," she says.

Harry can  _hear_  the eyeroll in his words: "Are you  _dead_?"

"No..?"

"Dying?"

"No?"

"Was there an emergency?"

She doesn't answer. Does a panic moment count?

Undaunted, he continues anyway: "Is there a murderer in your house? Wait - say that you prefer spaghetti over lasagna if so."

"I'm actually a fan of eggplant parmesan," Harry says, amused despite herself. "There's no murderer. What on earth are you on about, Louis?"

"That was the only  _reasonable_  explanation I could think of," he says, matter-of-fact. "That you would hang up on me. And then not answer. Zayn does it all the time, you know. I expected better of you."

She muffles a smile with her hand, sits down in the armchair that Taylor always says is too big to be comfortable. Harry doesn't usually remind Taylor that she is taller than the blonde - Taylor's not fond of the fact, but she can't always bring herself to care, really.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have."

"I don't think so. What are you doing?"

Harry glances around her room, winces, and lies: "Cooking. Trying to. We're out of food again."

Another smile through his words. "Meet me outside your building in half an hour. I'm starving and I want Chinese."

She opens her mouth to protest, say that she's busy - and she  _is_ ; the book won't pick itself - but he's already hung up and she's left listening to the dial tone buzz in her ear.

And when she walks outside of her flat thirty minutes later, her phone clutched tight in her hand -  _get down here luv it's cold and i'm hungry_  - Louis was leaning against the wall next to the stairs, chattering on the phone.

" - I'm just going to dinner, Z," he says and she thinks he hasn't noticed her yet. She's quiet, and she figured out about the tricks to help the door close without slamming a month after moving in. "I'll be back later to help you with - yeah, well, my day was long and I want Chinese. Don't even pretend - "

His voice stutters when he sees her, and she flashes him a big grin, gesturing for him to finish his phone call. She knows that Zayn and Louis live together, but this sort of comfort is unfamiliar to her. "- Liam and Niall are  _both_  coming over to help you with editing, stop acting like it's this big deal that I'm ditching out - "

Harry frowns; she hadn't realized that Louis had previously had plans. His voice on the phone had sounded as though he were simply wanting to do something with her - not ditch someone else.

She'd have been a liar if she said that there wasn't a fluttering of warmth in the pit of her stomach at the thought that Louis preferred her company when he'd had a rough day.

"Yeah," he sighs, "Love you, too, Zayn. I'll bring you something back."

Zayn says something on the other end and Louis hung up, shoving his phone in his pocket and a hand through his hair before looking up at Harry. She bites back her comment.

"Hey," she greets, deliberately not mentioning the obvious exhaustion in his face.

He relaxes, some of the tension draining from his eyes. "Hi," he says back, before inclining his head towards the street. "Chinese, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry grins. "We can talk about how you called me seven times in about three minutes."

"I did what I had to," he says, unrepentant as they begin walking. "I don't like being hung up on."

Harry hums. He grins.

They walk quietly another block, enjoying each other's presence and it's. It's nice, she thinks; because the truth of the matter is that they haven't known each other that long at all, but at least they can easily fall into a rhythm that she finds soothing - it beats with her heartbeat in her ears, but doesn't overwhelm her. A sideways glance shows that he's already looking at her, a small smile playing quiet on his lips.

"What?" She asks.

"Nothing. Just thinking."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

That startles a laugh out of him: "Jesus, Harry. Who even says that anymore?"

Louis reaches over, pokes at her - she dodges around a puddle on the ground from the rainstorm earlier in the day and makes a face at him. "I do."

He's watching her with a look in his eyes that she can't identify. "Are you even real?"

When she smiles at him, she's sure to show her teeth. "One hundred percent real. Unfortunately so, according to my sister. She spent ten years telling me that I was a figment of her imagination."

He blinks. " - What? Did you believe her?"

Harry pulls a face, rueful. "For seven of them. And when I figured it out I started using it to my advantage."

"How so?" He's curious, she can tell - his eyes are alight and dancing, not staid like they had been before. It's far more comforting to see him like this, with his customary energy filtering back into him with a slow cadence, than it had been to see him exhausted.

She shrugs. "Left things in her room, told her the fairies had done it because they wanted me back. I wasn't the most imaginative kid, but she believed it. I didn't tell her until she finally started crying because she was actually afraid that I would be sent back to the other world that I'd come from, or something."

"Crying?" He arches his brow.

Harry laughs, a quiet sound that bounces off the buildings around them. "Yeah, apparently she'd gotten fond of me at some point during that decade."

Louis, when he laughs, does so with his whole body: head tilted back and eyes crinkled, as though he's a child learning the sound of his own enjoyment. He does that now, and Harry wraps herself in it as though surrounding herself with velvet.

"I was the oldest, you know," he says, and Harry nods. Four sisters. Not hard to remember. "But they're a lot younger. I never did anything like that."

She leans over, nudges his shoulder with hers. "They probably love you more for it," she tells him. "It took me a few of those years to actually get over the trauma. I used to tell her that I'll charge her the therapy bill when I crack at forty."

Louis rolls his eyes. "I'm sure she'd love to pay it. In here - " He nods towards a small restaurant that proclaims the best dumplings in London; Harry's not sure she believes it but she'll give it a try, at least. He holds the door open for her, and she walks in, murmuring a quick thank you. " - Been here before, love?"

Her eyes flare a little at the petname before she shakes her head, covers it up. He's from Yorkshire, she reasons; not to go by stereotypes, but those people use 'love' like candy for a pedophile.

Totally a stereotype. She doesn't even know if it's true.

"Nah," she says easily, "I don't eat a lot of Chinese food, and when Taylor gets to pick it's usually from a place near her work."

"Let me guess," he says. "Granola - you said you've been vegan - nothing not organic for you, right?"

Harry widens her eyes at him, bats her lashes. "You know me so well."

His laugh rings out again, and she notes when he turns to the counter to scan the menu that the tension in the line of his shoulders has reduced - it's not gone, not entirely, but it's more gone than it was before and that's a victory in and of itself.

Louis orders with confidence, turning before the cashier has managed out the price, and inclines his head. "Harry?"

She shakes her own. "You're not paying," the woman tries.

He smiles - she knows that smile. It's harmless and bland and gets exactly what is wanted. It's probably not worth fighting, but she's doing it anyway.

"I can afford it," she says. "And anyway, I'm going to have to get some for Taylor."

He scrunches his nose. "Your roommate?"

A tentative nod.

"Ah." His eyes are sharp. "Well, alright then. If you want to prove you're an independent woman or whatever - " A wave of his hand " - Be my guest."

She bites back the instinctive impulse to tell him that he's being degrading - Harry's not blind to the way that his eyes are amused despite the curiosity inherent in them at the moment; and she knows that he wouldn't say anything deliberately hurtful after listening to her and Zayn ramble about feminism and its necessity at coffee the day prior. Instead, she lets him pay before moving up to give her own order, the familiar words rolling off her lips. A hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant isn't so very different from another hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and there's a reassuring familiarity in doing the same thing over and over again.

"Usually," Harry says, leaning against the chair that Louis' sat himself at for a moment before settling herself in across from him, "Taylor and I order from a restaurant about twenty minutes away by Underground." A faint smile pulls at her lips. "It's even dinkier than this, but the dumplings are just - to  _die_  for."

Louis arches a brow. "You'll have to give me the name of it," he says. "I like Chinese."

"Who doesn't?"

"No one  _I_  want to be friends with."

She pushes a laugh behind her teeth, allows it only in her eyes. "Good thing I like it, then," she says lightly, "I take being your friend  _very_  seriously."

His lips tug skywards. "Good," he says. "You ought to."

" _Order up for Louis_!" Sings through the small restaurant, and he turns to get his things. Harry consciously tries not to watch him leave – it's difficult, though, when he's speaking with rapid enthusiasm to the man behind the counter and she can remember the way that his eyes light up when he's that happy about something.

The difficulty with Louis, Harry thinks, is that he's so  _alive_. And she's not fool enough to think that she's any less alive than he – but where she's quiet and slow, and thinks before she speaks, he's more like to burst out with a song or a phrase that will guarantee a laugh. And every time that happens, blue eyes flash with secondary happiness – as though all that he ever looks for is to make people happy.

Perhaps that's what makes it so unnerving that his banter today is almost… forced, she decides, is the best word she can think for it. Today he seems stilted, and she remembers that he'd said it had been a bad day to Zayn on the phone.

She tries not to feel honored that he'd rather unwind with her than with the other three. She tries even harder to remember that she is not, no matter how much she might like to be, a part of the group of them. They are their own solar system, Harry thinks; she is a lone star.

It's melodramatic, but it works when Nick's words are rarely far from her thoughts.

"Right," Louis interrupts said thoughts, "I've got yours, too, hope you don't mind – "

She shakes her head. "I'd have been offended if you hadn't," she says dryly. "Dumplings or soup first?"

"Oh, the soup, definitely. Dumplings are a delicacy and deserve a certain decorum when eating them."

"Great alliteration," Harry says, laughing not just at his words but at the face he'd pulled – his lips stretched wide and eyes wider, guileless blue seemingly innocent. "Really great. You can see that you're a teacher there, Lou."

He grins wider, though more naturally. "Thanks," he says, and shoves a spoonful of soup in his mouth.

A beat, and then –

"Oh,  _fuck_ , hot – Jesus Christ, it's fucking hot – "

Harry pushes his water towards him, grinning down at her own meal. "Didn't you see the warning?" She asks. "It said, 'very hot, Louis Tomlinson'."

He glares at her and she bites the inside of her lip to keep from breaking out into laughter – she doesn't think it'd go over well.

"Eat your damn food," he mutters a minute later, after she's met and caught his eyes. Whatever's in hers has blue eyes sparking with fondness that even Harry can see. " _Insolence_ , I tell you. Sheer insolence. Ought to treat me with respect, you know. I  _am_  older than you."

"I know," she says tartly. "You're practically over the hill already."

He gapes at her. "That's just – not  _true_ ," Louis splutters. "I'm barely twenty-four."

She bats her eyes at him. "That's what I said, isn't it?"

Another splutter from him, and he launches into a laughing tirade about the difference between being  _old_  and being mature; she gets the impression that he thinks of himself a little bit like Peter Pan, which, alright.

But over it all is the glittering of his eyes when she tells a joke, the fond smile that curls around his lips when she rolls her own eyes – the way that his gaze follows her lips when she sips on her drink, and his knuckles tighten on the side of the table until his and drops off of it entirely.

She's not immune to him; she's known that from the beginning. He's  _beautiful_ , and she'd tell him that if she weren't unsure of the way it'd go over –

But it's true, all the same. The sharp cheekbones that he lays claim to are offset by warm eyes and thin lips, and for every harsh line across his face or body there is a curve or laugh.

So. He's beautiful. She's handling it.

"Hey," he says suddenly, "Can I ask you something?"

Her eyes narrow on him. He doesn't seem to be planning anything, but – she learned from a week ago, when he'd told her to try his coffee after having put a shaker of salt into it, that Louis is good at looking innocent when he wants to. "If I can have your last dumpling," she says a beat later.

The good thing about Louis: he's not thrown off by the way that Harry has accustomed herself to being a beat behind everyone else. (It's easier, that way – she has time to think about what she wants to say and few people expect her to be as sharp as she is. She's pre-law – the value of being underappreciated is unfathomable.)

He pushes his plate towards her. "What book are you planning on reading?" An apologetic twist of his lips accompanies the words. "Sorry," he adds when she leans back. "I just – Zayn wanted me to ask. Says you've been skirting around her questions. And you texted me about it, so."

Harry drops her gaze to the table in front of her, a long finger tracing the dents that some other diner has left ahead of the two of them. "I haven't decided," she says quietly, and it surprises her. She'd meant to lie.

"What are your options?" He props his elbows up on the table, leans across to her to make up for the space she'd put between them. For the first time that night, his eyes are steady on hers, and she's reminded again that Louis is far, far more clever than he lets on. "Go on," he prompts when a minute passes and she's yet to say anything. "I'm not an English degree or anything, but Zayn was for a while and a bit of it rubbed off on me."

Harry tries not to think about the various meanings for 'rubbed off on', but isn't sure she succeeded.

His smirk turns wicked, and she says before he can elaborate or she can think too long about it: "I was thinking  _The Great Gatsby_."

A frown curls between his brows. "Why?"

It's a simple question, but Harry – falters.

"I don't – " She starts, tracing designs onto the tabletop. "I'm not sure. I like it. It's one of my favorite books. But … beyond that? You're asking if there's bigger significance?"

A nod is his answer, and she shrugs. The urge to say 'that's classified' and get the hell out of this discussion is stronger than she wants to admit, but – but. She owe them, Harry knows. Not just for letting her participate in this project, but also because they need her and she'd said she'd do it.

"It's a story about excess," she says quietly. "About partying and what that can do to you. There's sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, and there's – there's loss. And death. There's actually a ridiculous amount of death and loss."

He nods again, steeples elegant fingers and rests his chin on them. "Go on," he prompts after the silence hovers for too long.

"I just – " she tries again. "This – for me – this project? It's about giving back. To you guys, to – to the girls who need a role model. And Gatsby… He gives back a lot. But he loses himself in the process."

She lifts her gaze to meet his, green holding steady as she finally figures out the way to put into words what she's been struggling with. The flush that curls up her cheeks goes ignored. "I want to show that it's possible to give back without losing yourself along the way."

Harry doesn't know what the look in his eyes means, but it's warm and she thinks it resembles understanding more than he might know. It feels like wrapping herself in covers fresh from the dryer, though even that has a catch to it when it drags the wrong way. She can't decide an appropriate metaphor to accurately describe the way he's looking at her – just knows that she wants it to stay like that.

"I think that's really admirable," Louis says quietly. "And I'm glad you have a reason to be doing this, Harry."

She frowns, confused, and stands to throw out her trash. It feels like she's full of nerves, though there's no reason to – as though she's just finished performing on stage and cannot sit still to save her life.

He joins her at the door, continuing, "A lot of the girls who came by, you know, they didn't have a reason to do it. One girl," a snort, "one girl said she'd been  _dared_."

Harry laughs even as they walk out of the restaurant. "Any reason is a reason," she counters.

"That's what Niall said. Zayn… disagrees." A shrug punctuates his words. She would hazard a guess that he agrees with Zayn, then. Louis' shrugs are even more expressive than his eyes. "But the thing is, I guess – " He slants a glance over to her that she meets with steady eyes. "This isn't like – you aren't hurting yourself, or anything. You aren't going to be in pain."

She snorts. "I should hope not," Harry mutters. Most of the time she manages to forget that Louis will be touching her with a vibrator and trying to make her – on screen. Right. It's hard the rest of the time  _not_  to remember when he looks at her with vivid eyes and a wicked grin.

He laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls of the slightly dingy houses around them. "Right, well, not unless you like that," he amends. "The point  _is_ , if you aren't feeling the point of the project – " An expansive shrug " – Your eyes won't be alive. And, like – that's the point of this, isn't it? To show that women can feel. A lot."

Harry's lips move without her permission into a bright smile. "You've put a lot of thought into this," she observes.

He ducks his head. "A bit, yeah," he says. "Zayn's been talking about it for ages – she's really passionate about this, you know? Has been for ages. I mean, art's her thing, always has been, but for a while she was going to be an English major."

"What changed?"

Louis grins, the expression almost intimately fond. "Someone told her she was meant to be there because she was a girl," he says. "She took offense, said girls could do anything. He told her she'd never get anywhere with her art as a girl – "

Harry laughs, loud and unfiltered. "Bet that didn't go over well," she snorts.

"Liam beat him up," Louis agrees serenely. "Not that there was much left, after Zayn got through with him. She plays dirty. Told the whole uni that he had a small dick and couldn't be trusted to get his partner off first – "

"I remember that!" Harry interrupts, "I was barely a first year here, but there was  _so_  much talk about it going around. By the time I heard it he didn't even have a dick anymore, not after the syph go through with him."

Louis grins, delighted. "Yeah," he says. "That's Zayn."

Harry shakes her head. "God," she says, "I looked up to her for  _months_. Used to threaten boys at parties who'd not leave me alone that I'd do the same thing to them."

He reaches over, swings an arm over her shoulders. He's warmer than he ought to be in the chill of a London fall, but Harry's not complaining – not when he smells like cinnamon and the Chinese restaurant. She thinks it probably shouldn't be as appealing as it really is – because mostly, it smells like Louis.

"You're a brave soul, Harry Styles," he shakes his head, "A brave soul."

Harry purses her lips, flicks a glance at the ground to ensure that she's not going to trip. It's more habit than anything, really. She doesn't think Louis would let her fall.

"Not really," she says to the pavement beneath her feet. There's a disgusting amount of gum leftover, mixed in the rainbows that the rainwater and oil slicks leave in puddles.

He squeezes her shoulder. "Yeah, you are," he disagrees. "You're doing this. That's brave as hell."

Harry stays quiet, and he sighs, low and long. "Look," he starts, and stops. "You don't have to believe me." She's not even looking at him. "But you're doing this project. That makes you pretty damn brave in my book, Harry."

She draws her lower lip between her teeth and nods.

"This is yours, innit?" His voice is lighter this time, though when her gaze rises from pavement to his eyes, they're still solemn on her face.

She flicks a glance up at the flat complex they've reached, knows its hers before she even does so. "Yeah, it's mine," she nods, and moves to disentangle herself from Louis. He holds her tighter, pulls her into a proper hug.

His arms are tight around her, his face buried in her hair, and Harry breathes in, out. It's more comforting even than his glances earlier had been, and she melts into the embrace, holds him back just as tightly.

At some point in the last week and a half, Louis' become a friend that she values more than she would have expected. Beneath the joking and the laughs, he's – solid, just as strong as his hug, and she tucks it behind her heart to think about later.

"Harry – " He starts, and pulls back; his gaze flickers between her eyes and her mouth, and almost instinctively she tilts her face up.

"Yeah?" She breathes, fingers digging into his arms.

Another flicker from eyes to lips – she bites her lower lip anxiously, wondering if the tension between them is visible to those walking by. Maybe. She's not.

Louis shuts his eyes, pulls back. She lets him.

"I'll see you this weekend," he says and opens his eyes, voice rough.

Harry doesn't trust her own, and nods.

"Right," he says.

And then – "Right," again, this time more determined, and he leans forward, hands cradling her cheeks and slants his lips across hers.

Harry gasps into the kiss, mouth opening instinctively to his – he's not … gentle, necessarily, but he's not rough, either. He knows what he's doing, and a shiver rolls down her spine when his tongue moves inquisitively to taste the seam of her lips.

He tastes like Chinese and the mint from his gum earlier; the petrichor of the rain and whatever body wash he uses – he smells like cinnamon – surrounds her. Louis' hands move from her cheeks to her body, gripping her first at her ribs and then at her waist, and she's never felt so delicate as she does just now.

When he pulls back, it feels as though she'd barely had time to close her eyes.

His lips are a slick, obscene red, and he watches her as though he'd told her the secrets of the world and she had replied simply:  _"I know."_

"Right," he says for the third time, and leans in, presses a gentle kiss to her lips, first, and then to her cheek. "See you then, Harry."

She – maybe – has to lean against her door to hold her up as he walks away.

It's becoming a habit.

But then, it is a sturdy wall. It can handle it.

* * *

 

The flat that Liam and Zayn share is bright and airy, and Harry thinks, standing in the middle of their kitchen with a cup of tea cradled between her palms, that she had never expected anything else. The first time she'd been there, she'd been terrified to move-as if one shift of her body, ungainly as it is, would have caused a ricochet of problems throughout the carefully arranged rooms.

It was ridiculous, of course, and Louis had ensured that she was well aware of that when she'd mentioned it; he'd knocked over a photo frame showcasing Zayn with the others, and laughed with his head tilted back to the moon when Zayn had scolded him for it.

This time around, Harry moves easily - if not gracefully - through flat, leaning against a cabinet as though she's been here more than the scant times that comprise reality.

" - So I was thinking we'd use the living room," Zayn's saying, "I've got a sheet up over the wall and there's good light coming from the windows, that'll help with - "

"The lights we've got, yeah," Liam interrupts, heavy brows furrowed over the lips he's nibbling on. "Yeah, that'll work. It'll give us enough contrast that when we put it in black and white you'll be able to tell it's still Harry."

She flashed them a weak smile when their eyes turned to her.

Zayn, though, hesitates.

"I was thinking…. " She said, brushing dark hair behind her ears. It's a characteristically elegant gesture, but the hesitation isn't - this project is Zayn's baby, and that's been clear from the beginning. Pausing, wondering: that's not Zayn's forte. Not with this.

Louis, his presence a warm heat next to Harry, arches a brow. "Go on," he prompts. "We're all dying to know."

There's more than one thing that could apply to, Harry thinks wryly - they haven't spoken about  _the kiss_ , but he's there next to her as though he knows that right now, she can't.

She hasn't forgotten  _why_  she's in Louis and Zayn's airy, pretty flat; she's not sure she  _could_  for get it, after waking up at three in the morning in a cold sweat and drinking tea until she was here, drinking more tea. She's possibly going to float away on a river of tea.

"I wanted to do it with color," Zayn says. If she wasn't the type of woman who doesn't rush through her words, Harry would have said that was exactly what happened. As it was, Zayn just - didn't use her usual delicacy when it came to picking out the right words aura that she generally threw off. "Her - you know. I just want to do it that way. We can always make it monochrome later."

Louis' eyes are narrowed on the slim woman, but Liam's already nodding. "Yeah, that's probably easiest, anyway," he says thoughtfully. "That way we can play with the color scheme later on, when we're - "

Harry tunes him out, slouching against the countertop and struggling not to do the same to Louis' shoulder. Standing straight isn't the easiest thing in the world, she supposes, but she'll be sitting soon enough, and she shuts her eyes just for a moment, to breathe.

Just to breathe.

And then Louis leans over, breath hot against her ear, and whispers: "You ready for this, darling?"

It shouldn't be that hot, but - fuck, it's Louis. She accepted the first time she'd felt the blush of arousal when he'd licked at whipped cream on his upper lip at a diner at three in the morning that everything he did was engineered to drive her mad.

The feeling of his lips on hers hasn't gone away. She's sort of hoping that it doesn't - it's something to focus on beyond the terror spiking in her blood.

Harry shivers. Fuck breathing, she thinks almost hysterically - "Yeah, I'm fine," she lies.

In her defense, she hadn't realized it was going to be a lie until it fell from her lips. It would have been too complicated to explain that her skin feels tight and her eyes dry; that the tea she's drinking like alcohol is lingering in the pit of her stomach in a cold ball rather than the warmth she's so desperately seeking from it. To say she's nervous would have been an understatement of near epic proportions.

His eyes linger on her a moment longer, but Niall has entered the room before Louis can speak again, and maybe it's for the best that the blonde man is as loud as he is. Louis' gaze is too expressive for Harry to relax quite yet, and from the reading she's done - relaxing is probably the most important thing.

Jesus. She's going to be brought to orgasm on video for the Internet to see and she's supposed to  _relax_.

She'd think her life was a comedy if she hadn't dragged her own arse into the situation.

"Come on, Harry," Zayn's saying, extending a hand to the slighter girl, "Let's go get you set up. You've got the novel?"

 _The Great Gatsby_  is in Harry's bag. She nods.

Zayn's still talking as she leads Harry into the living room, a large table placed in front of a sheet that covers the paintings and photographs covering the walls last time she'd been here. There's a chair behind it and a camera in front of it.

It's very simple - tasteful. She can appreciate that.

She appreciates more the discreet tablecloth draped over it; at least it's only Louis who will be able to see what he's doing. (She's not sure if that's better or worse, and her lips tingle once more.)

Zayn's watching her with dark eyes, and Harry wrenches her own from the table to face the woman. "Looks good," she says, and if it's weak - well. It's not like they know her well enough to know what it's from.

That doesn't stop Zayn from looking more concerned than she has any right to, really, and Harry looks away before she can say something stupid, like  _I'm scared_ or  _I changed my mind_  - because they wouldn't be true, not really.

She wants to do this.

She just doesn't want to  _do_  it.

The meaning behind it matters more than anything else, she knows - it's like when she stands on stage to sing with the amateur band of the month behind her and prepares to open her mouth. It's the nerves that swell in her throat and remind her that she's human and not the best at what she does, but she needs to do it anyway.

Harry takes a breath, takes the book out of her bag and settles into the chair behind the table before she can think her actions through. The purple eye of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg stares at her from the cover of the novel; she sets her palm over it. Voyeurism is going around, apparently. She wonders if it's contagious.

Her fingers tap against the cover of the book for a second while Zayn heads over to where Liam and Niall are standing, a camera between them. It's large and black with an impersonal lens; she doesn't look at it long.

Louis leans over the table in front of her, the vibrator he'd showed her earlier in the week lying innocuously next to his hands. It's not very pretty, she thinks distantly. Gray and rocket-shaped - nothing like the blue bunny she's got under her bed at her flat.

"Y'alright, love?" He asks quietly.

She appreciates the discretion.

"Yeah," Harry says, voice rasping against her throat. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just want to get started, is all."

He looks sympathetic. "Nerves," he nods, "They'll kill you." The words are innocent, but the tone behind them - Harry thinks that maybe Louis' realized more than he's letting on. "Just remember, yeah? It's just me." His gaze drops to her lips and back up fast enough that she can almost doubt it happened at all.

She nods. "Thanks," Harry manages. "I know."

And she does. It's probably the one thing keeping her as calm as she is-externally, at least-the knowledge that it's just Louis; of all the things she's worried about, the idea that she's not good enough down  _there_  isn't one of them. He kissed her last night; he must want her at least a little bit.

(It's crossed her mind that-very possibly-that's the entire reason that he'd done that, but Harry doesn't dwell on the thought. She's got bigger things to fret about, at the moment.)

He grins at her, pats her hand on the front of the novel, and then backs away, holding up the curtain.

Zayn calls from the back of the room: "Go on and let us know when you're ready, Harry, and we'll get started."

Harry takes a deep breath. And then another. Three is probably excess and so she stops at that, though her lungs are aching for more.

She opens the book to the mark she'd placed in it earlier, the familiar flow of Fitzgerald's words across creamy paper not nearly as reassuring as it was most of the time.

"Alright, then," she says, pleased when her voice is steady. She'd expected it to break. "Let's do this, yeah?"

Her eyes flick up to meet the camera, the image of her smaller than life in the reflection that greets her. She hopes it's just a trick of the light; wasn't the camera supposed to add pounds? She's not sure. "I'm Harry," she introduces as she'd been instructed to do, "And this is  _The Great Gatsby_ , by F. Scott Fitzgerald."

She doesn't add a joke about Fitzgerald probably laughing to himself in his grave about his work being used in such a way. That's not in the script, and she'd be damned if she has to do this twice.

""There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind," Harry starts. "And as we drove away, Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic." The familiar slick of Fitzgerald's words over her lips is jarring.

Louis' fingers tap against her knees, reminds her to keep them spread. Right.

She swallows harshly, continues on into the blinking red of the camera: "The room was large and stifling, and, though it was already four o'clock, opening the windows admitted only a gust of hot shrubbery from the Park. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her hair..." Harry says, Nick's voice coming through. She'd found a lot of comfort in this novel, when she was younger. You could remake yourself into anyone you wanted, if only you were determined enough.

She'd never realized how difficult it is to make sure that you  _like_  who you've been remade into. Gatsby's sins are just as black as her own, maybe, because she's the same as him, making promises that she can't keep.

"As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn's Wedding March from the ballroom below," she says, flicks her tongue over her lips. "'Imagine marrying anybody in this heat!' cried Jordan dismally."

The vibrator buzzes against the hem of her dress, pushed up around her waist just enough that the fabric flutters over her cunt. She hadn't worn panties that day - had thought maybe she was making it easier on herself. Now she wishes she had that extra level of protection.

It's so  _stupid_ , and Harry hates herself for regretting this even as she reads on; because she  _doesn't_  regret having agreed to this. She doesn't regret agreeing or wanting to do it, only regrets that she's panicking because the room is too small.

She tries to throw herself into the scene she's chosen, where everything goes to Hell and Gatsby's plans, eventually, do not work out -

The heat of the hotel room that they are in seems only to have made its way through her bloodstream, leaving her stiff beneath Louis' hands.

"Another pause," And Harry has to struggle not to add her own in there. "A waiter knocked and came in with crushed mint and ice, but the silence was unbroken by his "thank you" and the soft closing of the door. This tremendous detail was to be cleared up at last."

Harry took a breath, continued on until she felt as though she were fraying at the seams as easily as Daisy's temper. Or ability to make her own choices.

She'd always looked down on Daisy Buchanan, but for a moment, she could understand where the beautiful woman had been torn between what she knew and what she wanted to know.

Maybe it had been Gatsby who was obsessed with the green light, Harry thinks, but it was Daisy Buchanan who had kept it on.

"'Self-control!' Repeated Tom incredulously," Harry had planned to emulate the way she'd always imagined Tom sounding, but it's struggle enough to read, let alone anything else. Her thighs clench when the vibrator touches her flesh for the first time; it is, at least, not cold. It's small comfort. "'I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out.'"

She takes another deep breath.

She'd wanted this to be representative of her, but Fitzgerald's words stick in her throat and claw their way into the air, and Louis' hand on her thigh feels more like a vice than the comfort it had been before.

"Wait," she says - gasps - and drops the book from nerveless fingers. "I need - air. I need a moment."

Zayn appears from behind a curtain, a furrow carved between her brows, but Harry can't look at her - or at Liam, who has turned off the camera and who looks nothing like the red blinking light that she can't get out of her head. Instead she pushes herself up from the table, yanking her dress back down around her thighs and leaves as quickly as she can from the room without looking like she's running.

Behind her, she can vaguely hear Louis, backing out from beneath the table: " _What? Harry, wait -_ "

She doesn't stop.

It's just that she can't  _breathe_ , is the thing - just that her heart is roaring in her ears and her vision is blurry around the edges and she doesn't want to faint in front of them. They're so  _strong_ , and she's not even strong enough to sit in a room full of people who are blind to the under-the-table and let herself be free.

Outside the building, London's air is smog-thick and rain-heavy, and she breathes it in gratefully, leaning against the brick wall. Her hands are shaking and she shoves them through her hair, thick curls tangling around the knuckles.

She pulls. The slight pain helps more than she'd admit out loud.

Behind her, the door opens and then closes again, Louis' steps - who else would it have been? - sounding through the street. It's early enough in the morning that few people are about; weekends aren't the busiest time for London's streets, though its coffeehouses might have something else to say.

"I'm fine," she says without turning to look at him. "Just - needed a bit of air."

Louis doesn't touch her, but leans close enough to her that she can feel the heat from his body. "Okay," he says evenly. "That's fine. I need to know something, though."

She folds her lips. "Shoot."

Anything but, is what she means to say, but - if it'll stop him from trying to get her to go back upstairs before she's ready, she'll take it. (That she  _will_  be ready, given enough air, is beyond doubt. She wants to do this. She just has to get her breath back.)

"Do you want this?"

Great. Harry slides her eyes towards him, sees him watching her steadily, and has to stiffen her knees. "Yes," she says simply, "I do."

"It just - " He sighs, leans a little more towards her so that their shoulders brush. The contact is comforting. "I'm  _not_  going to force you into this. Jesus. I won't do that to you, Harry, got that?"

She frowns, pulling her lower lip from her teeth as she does so. Harry hadn't even realized she'd been rubbing at it. "I - I hadn't thought you would," she says honestly, "I just - it felt like so much, all at once. Like it was hitting me all at once."

He nods. "Yeah," Louis says, "I get that. But - listen, orgasms, sex… they're a big deal. They can be. I know part of this is us trying to prove that they're okay, but if you're - if you don't want - " He shakes his head, brown hair flipping around his eyes. "I'm not going to force it onto you. That's not - I'm not that kind of person. And I'm sorry if I … made you think that I was."

If Harry thought she'd been following this conversation, she is - suddenly - so, so wrong.

Maybe he sees that confusion in her eyes, because, "The kiss," he elaborates. "I kissed you last night - didn't really ask permission. Didn't ask permission today, either. I'm sorry."

And then what he's trying to say slams into her with the force of a train, and she's breathless again - but in a different way than before, where there's suddenly so  _much_  air around her that she can't possibly swallow it all, no matter how much she wants to.

"Woah," she says, hasty. "Woah,  _no_ , Louis, wait a minute - "

He doesn't listen; maybe he can't. She doesn't know. "I just - you're amazing, Harry, and I - last night was - "

"If you say it was a mistake," Harry says quietly, "I'm going to punch you in the balls."

Bright blue eyes stare at her for a moment before he laughs, head tipping back the way it always does. She relaxes the faintest bit.

"I wasn't going to say it was a mistake," he says. She believes him.

"Listen," she continues a little easier, "Last night - you kissing me - I've wanted that, alright? Trust me, I wanted it last night, too."

Her cheeks heat, but she admits: "I definitely touched myself to the thought of your lips, Louis, trust me when I say that I wanted it."

If you can't talk about orgasms with the person whose hands had been dangerously close to you with a vibrator that looks like a bullet, who would you do it with? She's not sure she wants to know the answer.

Louis laughs quietly. "Alright," he says, and she's relieved to see that his pupils are larger than they had been. Good. She shifts her weight, rubs her legs together.

"Yeah?" She asks, to make sure.

"Alright," he says again."But today - "

"Today," Harry interrupts, "I - I got nervous. This is so  _big_ , you know - " A glare to keep the joke she can see lingering on his lips back " - And I froze."

Talking it through - the breeze that whips through her hair - and his heat, pressed so tightly against her that she almost can take more comfort from that than from the briskness of the London air in late autumn - have calmed her down more than she'd expected. Realizing that Louis had thought he was - that was doing the rest of it.

He's still watching her, wary. She lifts a hand and trails her fingers down his cheek, a fond smile curling her lips. The panic from earlier - a strong word, but she can't find a synonym that's accurate enough - has subsided, leaving determination and, faintly, a little bit of excitement.

Louis had wanted to kiss her. He'd wanted to do everything else.

She shrugs. "It's not - it's not that I don't want to do this. I just - the lines from the book, I don't know. Everything converged so fast."

Louis nods, watching her quietly. She thinks maybe he accepts what she's saying but isn't sure - if he doesn't, then he's not saying anything else about it.

"Maybe a different part of the book?"

"I don't - "

"Is there another part you really like?"

She thinks for a moment. "When Daisy's talking… " She says quietly. "I really like the end, but - there's no guarantee I could get there before." Her cheeks heat; she doesn't elaborate what the 'before' is that she's thinking of. "But when Daisy talks about her daughter, says she hopes she's a fool…"

"Sounds a lot like what you were saying," Louis observes. "About being able to give yourself."

Her lips quirk. "Yeah, it - " The grin that builds on her lips feels more than real. It feels right. "Yeah," she says again, giddy laughter in her eyes. "That's perfect. You're perfect."

He chuckles, shifts so that his arm is over her shoulders. "I've been saying that for ages," he says. "No one believes me-especially not Zayn. You're going to have to convince  _her_  that you're okay, too, you know."

"I know," she nods. "But I am. Really. It just - it didn't feel right. I wanted it to, but it just - for a moment, it felt like - I don't know. Not  _wrong_ , but not as right as it could have been."

Louis' arm tightens around her. "Whatever you say, love," he says, and then pauses from where he'd been moving to head back inside. His gaze is sharp. "Did you - last night - Really?"

"Yes," she interrupts. "I did." A slow smile unfurls over her lips. "I really did."

His eyes lighten three shades, she'd swear it before a judge, and a matching smile shows on his lips.

"Good," he murmurs, and grips her chin with his fingers, eyes locking on her mouth. "Can I - "

"If you ask permission to kiss me, I swear to," She starts to say with a laugh, and then he's kissing her again. She'd thought maybe she'd made up how  _good_  it was last night, the electricity between them that flows so easily.

It's reassuring to know that she hadn't been.

A long moment passes as London begins to wake up. The kiss stays almost -  _almost_  - chaste; and then he pulls away, grinning down at her.

"Are you ready, Harry?"

She leads the way inside as an answer.

Before, she thinks before she sits down and spreads her legs, gaze catching on Louis' and issuing a challenge, she'd been searching for her courage.

This time, it's already there.

"I'm Harry," she says again after reassuring Zayn and Liam and Niall that she is  _okay_  - really, she is. She believes it, too. "This is  _The Great Gatsby_ , by F. Scott Fitzgerald."

She fancies for a breathless pause that she can imagine Scott Fitzgerald laughing from the shrouds of the past at the comedy this has turned into before continuing on into the passage she'd chosen again. The first time she'd read this, she'd been sixteen and trying to understand who she was. Understanding a novel about  _America_  from the 1920's hadn't been a priority.

Irony, she thinks. Fate has a sense of humour.

"For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened — then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk," she begins, her voice steady.

Beneath the table, Louis' hands graze against her knees, spreading her apart farther. She feels vulnerable, his breath grazing against her inner thigh, and a small smile plays around her lips. The vibrator turns on, the buzzing of it thrumming through her veins.

"'Very romantic,' he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.'"

She stutters over the last word, a harsh gasp lingering on her lips. Harry can almost picture Louis' smirk when he moves the vibrator in the same spot another time - and then another, and she drops one hand from the spine of the book to clutch at the table, resists the urge to back away.

It's so -  _base_ , in a sense, that she's sitting here losing her mind and they're watching her. She doesn't look at the camera, traces her finger along the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and tries to ignore the tip of the vibe circling her clit.

Oh  _God_.

"'We didn't know each other very well, Nick,' she said suddenly," she reads, trembling. ""Even if we were cousins.'" A deep breath ripples through her ribs. "'You didn't come to my wedding.'"

"'I wasn't back from the war.'

"'That's true.' She hesitated." Not Daisy, but Harry - she does the same. Breathes deep. Takes a break. The vibrator is snug against her leg, and she can picture her face right now: flushed, with heavy lids and a full mouth because she can't stop biting it when the sighs of pleasure get to be too much. "'Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cyn-cynical about everything.' Evidently she had - "

Harry flattens one hand from the book's spine to the tabletop. A giggle escapes the prison of her teeth. "Had reason to be," she reads on. "I waited, but she didn't say anymore, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter."

Her legs are shaking, her voice is anything but steady, and the camera's red eye is still watching her. She's still ignoring it, but it's like a third person is there - and she knows there's more than just her and Louis in the room, but the tap, tap, tap of his fingers against the inside of her knee keeps her grounded.

Harry thinks, hysterically ( _hah)_ , that Fitzgerald would have found this awesome. Probably would have gotten a boner from it.

She's proud of herself for not having stopped reading, yet.

"'She told me it was a girl'," Harry continues, stuttering over the words; the quiet confidence she'd had earlier has disappeared, leaving only a woman whose orgasm had left its previous position around the base of her spine and curled into the gaps of her ribcage. "'And so I turned my h-head away and w-w-wept.'" She takes a deep breath. "'"Alright," I said. "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool.'"

Harry's fingers tightened on the spine of the book. "'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. You see, I think everything's terri - " She shuddered. The vibrator shuddered with her. ""I think everything's terrible anyhow,' she went on in a determined way. 'Everybo - Everybody thinks so, the most advanced people.'"

She's not sure if it's Harry or Daisy who's stumbling over her words, but whoever it is, she wants to give them credit for continuing, at least. Her chest is all but heaving, sweat prickling at her temples, and she'd brush her hair away from her face if she had any fine-motor ability left to her.

As it is, reading on is the only thing she  _can_  do, at this point; her hips are stuttering forward and backwards as though her body isn't sure whether to push into the clever device that the even-more-clever Louis is pushing in and out of her, and Harry's lips won't shut entirely for fear of a lack of oxygen.

"The instant her voice broke out," her fingers spasm; she starts over. "The instant her voice broke  _off_ , ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said." A harsh swallow. Her pulse beats like butterfly wings in her fingertips. "It made me uneasy, as though - "

" _Ah_ ," Harry gasped, curling over the book. "As though - " She licked her lips, eyes hooded and struggling to focus on the words on the paper. Each word swam in front of her. "The whole evening had been a trick," she rushed through the words; "Of some sort to - to exact a contributory emotion from me."

Longer words: barely managed. Keep them short and simple, Harry, it's just a little longer until this segment is done and then the orgasm that lurks in the back of her eyes can sweep over her.

Her legs spasm, Louis' fingers tightening on her knees.  _Fuck_.

"I waited, and sure e-enough, in a moment she looked at me," Harry gasps again, a giggle trailing on the end of it. "With an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belong _ed_."

The word stutters off somewhere into the ether, but Harry pays it no attention, consumed by the fireworks that dance behind her eyes; she leans over, hands flat on the book, and struggles to breathe through it and the remembered image of Louis' grin when he'd told her how much he was looking forward to it.

When he'd told her how important she was to this project.

When she can breathe again, she blinks away the slight film of tears and straightens, stares into the red eye of the camera that she'd avoided so desperately before. "I'm Harry Styles," she said, "And this was  _The Great Gatsby_  by F. Scott Fitzgerald."

The faint humour that lingers on the edges of the words holds her up just long enough to recognize that the red light has stopped blinking, and then she puts her head down on the table and laughs until she's crying.

The aftermath is as much a haze as anything else -

They dance, and sing, and pop champagne. (It's a celebration, even though Harry's not sure why - it's not that big a deal to them, but it is to Harry, and maybe they understand that.)

Louis watches her with dark eyes.

Zayn makes a toast and Niall kisses her full on the lips when she's done. Liam does, too.

And Harry - she watches, dances among them; ungainly limbs swing around shoulders and necks, and Louis' eyes don't leave her the entire time.

When night falls, she. Well. She doesn't run away.

It's a strategic retreat.

* * *

 

Or so she tells herself when she locks herself in the shower and pretends that it's not the memory of Louis' eyes when he'd come out from under the table that she finally comes to, one hand clenched in in her hair and the other circling her clit.

"I'm coming,  _Christ_ ," Harry yells over the sound of her doorbell ringing in her flat, shoving a pair of shorts up her legs and grabbing her wallet from the table in the entryway.

"What can I -" she starts as she swings the door open, "I wasn't - Oh. Louis."

Shock shudders through her words, helped not at all by the way his eyes are dark and his shirt wet. It's raining outside - she knew that, rationally - but she hadn't realized just how much; it's a goddamn typhoon, if the way that his shirt is plastered to his skin and entirely see-through is any indication.

"... Louis?" She says a second later after he hasn't said a word, and is instead still staring at her; she's regretting not having put on proper clothes to answer the door, just a camisole and sleepshorts, but she'll be damned if she crosses her arms over her chest now. He'd been face-to-face with her vagina less than twelve hours previous, for Chrissake; she doesn't need to be self-conscious.

"Harry. I -" He hesitates.

She crosses her arms over her chest.

Harry's never heard him say her name like that - like he's eating it, like it's half-gone and he's savouring it because it won't last forever, no matter how much he wants it to. (She stomps on the little voice that says that's what she wants, as well.)

He says her name like he's nibbled it and liked it; he looks at her like he wants to devour her.

Her throat is dry.

" _Harry_ ," he says again, and she'd tease him about his inability to say anything worth listening to if he hadn't somehow gotten so close into her space that she can see the faint freckles that dot his nose, could have counted the galaxies that made up his eyes.

She can't breathe, tilts her head up to him to say something - Christ, to say  _anything_  - when he leans down and kisses her as he hadn't that first time, or even the second. That had been exploring; this was possessive. No more was he waiting for her to reach for him: his tongue swept into her mouth with a ferocity that left her breathless and clinging to him, the lean muscles on his forearms suddenly the only protection from the storm.

"Do you know - " He pulled back, eyes wild and dark on hers " - How much self-control it took me today?"

Harry shook her head.

" _Christ_ ," he groans, pulls her in again; this time he aims for the curve of her jaw, his hands impossibly gentle on the indent of her waist. "You don't even know what you do to me," he presses a quick kiss behind her ear, the heat of his breath and scratch of his scruff sending a shiver down his spine. "Do you even know how beautiful you are?"

She doesn't shake her head again, but only because he's sucking a mark into the skin of her neck and her entire body has arched into him, the thin fabric of her pajamas little prevention to the heat that he seems to emanate despite the wet.

Louis - Sun God. Sun King. Sun.

She gets it, now.

Louis' face is predatory - Harry swallows on a dry throat. "I got to  _hear_  you," he says, and one hand rises to cup her jawline. "I didn't get to  _see_ your face when you came."

"There's a video," she starts to protest, and - and doesn't even know  _why_  she is, except that his pupils are wide and her panties are wet. It's almost like she knows where this is going, but watching his tongue flick out to wet his lips, she can't remember what it is that she knows.

"I know," he says. "I watched it. Liam edited it, and I had to stop myself from covering his eyes and preventing him from seeing you like that."

Her heart stutters, not that it matters - it could have been any number of things that caused it, from the heat of his breath on her neck to the pressure of his leg at the apex of her own, but she'd bet her life that it's the  _passion_  that sinks into his words.

His fingers ghost down her sides, branding through her thin cami to her ribcage, breathing in short, hasty breaths against his chest. When he reaches the waistband of her sleep shorts, past it, he cups her sex with his palm and reaches a tentative finger to trace her folds.

Louis drops his head to her shoulder, a long groan shuddering through his body. She mimics it, unable to help it.

" _Christ_ ," he says again, rough and unwieldy, a reaction rather than an action. "You're so - fuck, Harry, you're wet already."

Harry's entire body jerks, her hips grinding into his - and shit, he's hard, pressing against her hipbone. Her throat is dry, eyes big on his face when he pulls back the faintest bit, just a breath of air between their bodies.

"Bed," she manages, "Come on - "

But he shakes his head and rests his forehead against hers.

"Wait," he says, and through the haze of arousal she's confused. Wasn't he the one who started this? Doesn't he want it?

He takes a deep breath that she can feel through her bones; and then another.

"I just," he says, and draws his hand from her shorts to rest against her cheek, the finger that had been dangerously - enticingly - close to inside of her held away from her skin. She appreciates the concern, wants to tell him it's not necessary, can't find the words. "I wanted you to know - " Blue eyes trace her features.

She struggles to think clearly, can't push words out through her lips and leaves them instead in her eyes. He seems to understand.

"I want you," he says, and then laughs. " _God_ , Harry, you have no - " A shake of his head. "You're fucking beautiful and you don't even know it, I know, but just - you made that  _joke_ , that first day, and I just - " He's stumbling over his words, and it's so  _weird_  for Louis to be anything but completely sure about his footing that Harry finds herself picking up the slack.

"It's mutual," she says, her voice rough. A shudder rolls down his spine.

"I've wanted you since I saw you," he tries again, thumbs gently rubbing along the tops of her cheeks. "I - that kiss - I should have said something. I didn't know what to say."

Harry reaches her arms up, loosening her hands' grasp on his waist to hold his hands too. "You should have," she agrees, unable to make it sound steady. It doesn't matter. "But you didn't, and you're here now - "

A question lingers in the back of her cut off sentence.

"I'm here now," he agrees, and leans forward once more to lay claim to her lips with his own. It probably should be off-putting, the aggression that swims through Louis and tangles her up in its threads, but it's not - not really.

It's comforting, more than anything else, and she drops her hands to his waist again, fingertips dancing daringly under the hem of his t-shirt. His skin is so warm - it's like touching the sun. She'll get tired of that metaphor eventually.

"Now bed?" She asks, tries not to be petulant, but.

It's  _so_  close.

 _He's_  so close.

He grins against her lips. "Bed," he agrees, tugging at her shirt until she holds her arms up and he can pull it off of her; his eyes, when they rake over her, show nothing but awe. It's a nice feeling, she thinks, and she leans up to press a hard kiss against him once more, moving from mouth to the corner of his jaw, listening to the noises that he can't seem to stop himself from making.

This is what she'd wanted, and she's maybe riding a high of  _I did it_  and  _he wants me_  and  _I want me_ , but whatever it is, when he brings his hands from her back to her arse, cupping and then pulling, she allows him to pull her up - wraps her legs around a slim waist, and bites down.

"God," he groans, moving towards what she hopes is her room. "Keep doing that and it'll be over before - "

"Other door," she interrupts, laughter coursing through the words; "Other door, Louis, c'mon, it's like you've never been here before."

He eyes her, close enough that she almost has to be cross-eyed to do so. "I haven't," he says dryly, and kicks open the right door this time.

Her room, thank God, is neat enough to pass, and he drops her in the middle of her bed. It's not made, necessarily, but it's not like it's been three weeks since she's done her laundry - and anyway, it's just going to be messed up again.

Louis leans over her, kissing her hard as his hands fumble with the waistband of her sleep shorts; she lifts her hips so that he can slide them off, and suddenly she's under him without any clothing at all and he's the opposite.

"Beautiful," he says roughly, pulling back enough to look her over. His eyes are so dark, she thinks almost hysterically; his pupils are, entirely, blown. "Fucking beautiful."

Her cheeks heat; she pushes at his shirt in retaliation, hoping he doesn't notice.

it's a silly thing to hope, but maybe -

Louis brushes his lips across the tops of her cheeks, so gently that she can't help but watch him when he moves back enough to pull of his shirt, too.

"Look who's talking," she retorts, because -  _God_.

He's stunning - lithe muscles and dark tattoos, and she suspects that her own pupils are blown wide when he leans back over her and places his hands next to her head to grind his hips, still jean clad, into her own. She bites her tongue so hard she can almost taste blood.

"One day," Louis all but growls into her ear, pressing her into her bed and surrounding her, it seems like. "One day, I'm going to fuck you in front of a mirror, and you're going to see just how fucking  _beautiful_  you are."

Harry whimpers, unable to help it.

His lips, pressed just below her collarbones, curl into a smile. "Oh," he says, pleased, and grinds his hips into hers again. She gasps. "You  _like_  that."

Louis pulls back enough to catch her gaze. "We're going to have so much fun together."

The words ring in her head, a memory of the first time he'd said that to her, almost two weeks ago, surfacing.  _God_. She'd thought him beautiful at the time; angelic, even, standing at the front of the theatre with his hair neatly parted and eyes flickering a welcome at her.

He's a fallen angel now, long fingers dancing wild patterns across her chest and tracing circles round her nipples until they're so hard she wants to cry; eyes dark and lips obscenely red and parted in a smile that promises to devour her and help her put the pieces back together again.

"I want to eat you out," he says - and that bluntness, where he tells her what he wants, yeah. She could get used to it.

Once she can think again.

"O-Okay," she gasps.

He laughs, low and rough, and shakes his head into her throat. "Next time," he promises, and it's dark and warm and honey-amber that rolls over her skin like the arousal that shivers just below her bones. "This time - "

Louis' fingers drift down to her sex once more, and this time -

"Oh,  _fuck,"_ Harry gasps. The smugness practically rolls off of him.

"This time, I'm going to make you come, and I'm going to  _watch_."

She can't find the words to agree verbally, her hips canting towards him even as he traces nonsensical designs around her clit, touching everywhere but where she wants him.

Sweat beads on her upper lip, and she lifts one hand to grab at the pillowcase beneath her head; her chest arches up towards him, where he's moved enough off of her to be watching her face. She'd be self-conscious, Harry's sure, if she could find the breath for anything except  _oh god please_.

And then he slides a finger inside her, and her entire body clenches up - she's panting, she can hear distantly over the rush of her heart in her ears, but he's watching her like she's the goddamn  _Mona Lisa_  and she can handle that, yeah.

"Fuck," he breathes out unsteadily. "Fuck, you're gorgeous."

A rough laugh. "C-coming from you," Harry says in a voice that's a pitch above her usual, "That's high p-praise. Oh,  _Jesus_   _Christ_."

"Right there?"

She nods - or thinks she nods - and drops her spare hand down to rub tight circles over her clit. "God, yeah," she manages, "God."

The flicker of his smile tickles against her cheek. "Louis' fine," he corrects, though she can hear the strain in his words over the attempt at lightheartedness.

Good, she thinks almost vindictively. Let him be affected by this, too. God knows she is.

"Getting a bit -  _ah_  - cocky, there, huh?" Her back arches up, fingers tightening almost to the point of pain, ignoring his mutter of  _you have no idea_. "Oh, please -  _yes_ ," she hisses, "Right there - yes."

"Come on, then," he encourages, crooks his finger and bites at her ear at the same time. "Come on, Harry."

And she does, her back arching so far off the bed that she'll feel it tomorrow and can't bring herself to regret it, her vision whiting out for a moment.

Just a moment, but long enough that when she comes back to herself, it's to Louis gazing down at her with starry eyes.

"Beautiful," he rasps, "Fucking - beautiful."

Louis leans down, brushes his lips against hers; orgasm-hazy and dazed, Harry returns it as best as she is able to, her fingers trailing down his side until she's at the waistband of his jeans, pushing uselessly at them.

"Off," she demands, "Come on, get them off - "

"Alright, alright," he laughs, and she interrupts:

"Get them off  _now_ ," Harry demands. "I want you in me ten minutes ago."

He gulps, tongue flicking out over his lips and then he moves off the bed just long enough to shuck the jeans, throw them somewhere in the room, and he's back, hovering over her. A foil packet winks at her from a closed fist, and he drops his head to her collarbone.

"You're sure, right?" He asks, as though he has to.

She grins, even if he can't see it and her body feels like taffy. "Positive," she answers, and grabs the foil from his hands to roll it on him herself.

Next time, Harry promises herself, she'll touch  _him_ \- there are few things in the world she likes more than watching someone fall apart because of her.

He laughs breathlessly and pushes himself up again, taking his himself in his hand and slipping into her. She stops breathing. It would be cheesy to think that when he's finally inside her it feels like she's home, so she stops thinking, too, and rolls her hips up towards him.

The groan that trembles on his lips before he pushes them against the dent of her collarbone is reward enough.

"Move," she grits out, "Come on, Lou, come  _on_  - "

He does so, a quick pulse of his hips before he settles into a rhythm that sings into her bloodstream like sin, and she arches up, fingers digging into the flesh of his biceps. The dark of his tattoos against golden skin is drug enough without the faint sheen of sweat that gleams in the light of her room.

They hadn't turned out the lights.

She can't bring herself to care.

It feels like barely any time has passed since she was sitting at a table and he was between her legs - but now she's spread across pillows and blankets and he's furled over her, pressing hasty, fumbling kisses to her jawline, her neck and collarbone, and her hands curl into her sheets.

"Oh,  _God_ ," she grits out, panting. "Come on, Louis, move - "

He glances up, a wicked smile curling over his lips. "Slow down?" He asks innocently, and does just that.

She will, later, deny that she ever emitted a noise such as the one that just spilled from her mouth.

"Don't you fucking dare," she spits, hands scrabbling at smooth shoulders for purchase and rolling her own hips up towards him. He swears, bears into her with renewed speed and a force that she  _definitely_  doesn't have a problem with.

His breathing goes ragged before hers does again, and she clutches him to her, wrapping a leg around his waist and gasping at the change in angle; "Come on, baby," she says, "Come on, you can do it - "

A strangled gasp and he comes, clutching her tight while he shakes over her, hot breaths panted into the curve of her neck. She's  _so_  close, and licks her fingers before dropping them down to where the two of them are joined, eyes fluttering shut at the contact.

 _So_  close. God.

But he bats her hand away a second later, taking over for her - and he's a bit more hesitant than she had been, thought it feels less like inexperience and more like wanting to do it right with her.

And when finally she comes, it's with him still in her; she's loathe to let him leave, just yet.

They reached intimacy weirdly, she thinks, and lets him pull out but stays snuggled up with him.

"I'll get a flannel," he says in a rough voice, but she shakes her head into the base of his throat.

"That's okay," she mumbles, "We can shower in the morning."

A pause, and then she has to ask - "You'll be here in the morning?"

She doesn't push back to see his gaze, but can picture his eyes: soft, fond, and still dark with fading hunger. It's comforting for someone she's known for less than three weeks.

"Yeah," he says softly. "I'll be here. You'll have to make breakfast, though; I'm shite at cooking."

At least, Harry thinks, she's going to know him for longer than three weeks. Falling asleep is easy.

Waking up in the morning to his breath at her bellybutton, blowing raspberries into her skin with the combination of immaturity and comedic moments that he's so good at - that's even easier.

And six months later, when they go to an exhibition of Zayn's first year work and her face is blown up larger than life, green eyes the only drop of colour in the picture, and so many people watch her come on screen, his grip tightens around her.

"So you aren't jealous?" She asks lightly, turning to him so that the red dress she'd donned for the occasion swirls around her thighs.

Louis grins. "I'm the only one who gets to make that happen." A nod towards where her fingers are white-knuckled around the edge of her book on the screen. "So... No, not jealous." He presses a kiss to her lips. "You might say I'm quite satisfied, actually."

"Yeah," Harry smile, mirth at the pun dancing in her gaze. "Me, too."

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all con-crit is more than welcome. You can find me on tumblr if you want to know massive reasoning behind things at atlas-wept.tumblr.com. 
> 
> My one regret in this story is that I didn't have Harry looking for a green light. But then, she isn't Gatsby, really, is she?
> 
> Thanks for sticking through it! xx


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